Time Warp
by emptyvoices
Summary: Two girls from different sides of the world awake to find themselves trapped in a house where only one thing is certain. Their death, constantly repeating. Not even the Doctor is aware that time is repeating itself. Will they escape these horrific time loops before they decay into nothingness and time viciously consumes them both? A story from emptyvoices and Azaadin for Halloween.
1. Reapers

**Author's Note:** This is a short story one shot essentially for those that enjoy a Halloween story featuring the Doctor. Co-written by Emptyvoices and Azaadin. One more chapter will follow this one to complete the story. This story does not involve a self insert or feature Sara and Shae. Still some of the darker Doctor themes.

For Ann Howard, this was never how she imagined spending the upcoming week that preceded Bonfire Night. Indeed, she looked forward to travelling to London with such pleasure, taking a vacation from her tedious position in public relations to make this ten hour flight from Portland, meeting her friend Chloe at Heathrow Airport. The designated point where their reunion should take place. After all, coming from two distinct sides of the world occasionally had its drawbacks. For Ann, it meant she could only see her friend sparingly. This trip had been long in the making as neither had been to London before, looking upon the voyage with a fair bit of excitement.

Ann was somewhat impulsive, given to a whimsical nature. It didn't mean she was naïve. Just the opposite. She was actually overly cautious and if her instincts told her something was wrong or someone couldn't be trusted, she heeded those internal feelings without question regardless of attempting to assert logic. Her father often told her, that listening to her gut instincts was sound. It was better to act in swift caution first and then consider the situation rather than end up in a predicament that could have been avoided.

For that very reason, Ann couldn't fathom with all the safeguards Chloe and herself had taken, how they ended up here. Waking up on a leather couch in the midst of a costume party that appeared to reflect something out of a horror movie. The room looked ancient, darkened with the throbbing tone of music that pulsed all around them. The windows blackened, covered with cobwebs. People moved stood in near proximity, speaking loudly while Ann felt her throat close in panic as she pushed her sweaty, dark hair away from her face to shake her friend awake you was also laying beside her, oblivious to this new terrifying environment. She was still wearing the t-shirt and yoga pants, Ann had recalled changing into at the hotel room from her often standard dark slacks and blouse she was accustomed for day wear. They had been deciding what to do for dinner when they found themselves interrupted mid-sentence with an unwanted visitor.

 _Opened the door for room service._ Ann berated herself. They hadn't ordered room service but merely thought the person had knocked on the wrong door. She gritted her teeth. _What was I thinking?_ She gave her friend's arm a gentle shake. "Chloe." She tried to speak softly so as not to startle. "Chloe!" Her chest was already constricting, thinking of the possibilities. Was this really a party or had they been dragged here for something even more nefarious? She heard of human traffickers and how it could be a custom to pick from the various tourists that were visiting from other countries. If that was the case, the two of them needed to find a way out right now.

Chloe groaned as she slowly blinked awake, frowning as she did so.

"Ann?" she asked in confusion, holding her head. She didn't have a headache, but she felt dizzy and very off. Then again, she rarely woke up well.

"Oh, thank goodness," the brunette sighed, quickly pulling her friend into a sitting position. "Do you remember what happened?"

Chloe quickly glanced around, trying to use her surroundings to prompt her memory. "No?" she said nervously. She only remembered being in their hotel room. They were going to watch a movie. She didn't recognise the title Ann had suggested, but she was just happy to laze around for the evening. She didn't remember how they had arrived in this creepy and dingy room, but she didn't know why she would have come to a Halloween party, as the outfits and decorations suggested. Halloween was not a holiday she celebrated, especially in Sydney.

"Where are we?" she asked, a hint of panic underlying her voice.

"I don't know." Ann said. She frantically felt around for her purse, letting out a breath that her possessions were still on her person. Pulling out her cellphone, she attempted to call the emergency number, assuming she was still in England. 999. She stared at her iPhone. It wasn't connecting and then she realized, there were no bars or signal on the device.

"Damn it." She swore, glancing at Chloe. "I changed the SIM card when I got here. I don't understand…." But then, if they were kidnapped by sex traffickers, why would they leave their phones in their possession? Strange numbers started to appear on the very screen of her device. A rapid pattern. Zeros and ones. She shook her phone briefly. It was glitching.

"Chloe, is your phone working?" She asked quickly. The other girl immediately checked her pockets, pulling out her device. A few minutes later upon fiddling with the screen, she shook her head.

"No….nothing." Chloe's voice was dispirited. She was looking around the house, which appeared to be in such an avid state of disrepair. "It's…" She looked down at the device in shock, dropping it on the couch. It was giving the same glitchy response Ann's phone had so recently done. A seemingly random series of numbers, filling the screen. Only to stop, once she dropped the phone.

"What is going on?" Ann demanded, turning to a party-goer, clearly dressed as a mummy. She had to take a chance. "Hey, do you have any idea where we are?"

The man only seemed to stumble, his unfocused gaze meeting hers. "'S obvious, isn't it? This is a party. Seems like you two need a drink."

"No," Ann was shaking her head. "That's the last thing…." The man had already drifted away and she clenched her teeth. "Forget this. Let's get out of here." She grabbed hold of Chloe's hand as the two made their way to the door just as it opened. The brunette let out a gasp seeing who it was, taking one step back.

"It's you." She breathed deeply, glancing at Chloe who stared at the newcomer. "It's…." Ann shook her head. "Why are we here?" She demanded. "What do you want from us?" Her heart was beating rapidly but she decided to choose a course of anger as opposed to fear. The best defense was a good offense and surely, she recognized the man who had pretended to be room service just to compel his way into their hotel room.

"Want from you?" The man said blankly. "Nothing at the moment. Weeell, nothing so far. Just was travelling a bit. Here and there. Saw this as we flew by."

"Drove by." The red haired woman immediately decided to correct him.

He continued to speak in rapid succession. "You see, neither of us have really done Halloween but given the time distortions, thought it might be fun for us to pop in."

 _He's mad._ Ann thought. Not only was he speaking nonsense but he was outright pretending that he didn't realize who they were. Her heart was beating rapidly inside her chest to think that she and her friend had been left prey to the whims of someone this mentally disturbed.

"Fine." She swallowed. "Alright. You pop in. We are both popping out." This place was rank and she didn't want them to be trapped here when this person decided to realize who precisely they were.

They tried to navigate around him, not even hearing the faint buzzing sound that was distinctly emitted before he took hold of their arms.

"You're both out of time." He pronounced.

"Excuse me?" Chloe asked.

"Oh, sorry." His voice didn't sound particularly apologetic. "I'm the Doctor by the way and this is Donna. Now, what are your names?"

Ann looked at him warily before glancing at the woman he introduced as Donna. She seemed relatively normal, all things being equal. Perhaps she was a family member of his, designated to watch him for any episodic behavior. Taking a deep breath, she leaned towards the woman and whispered in her ear. "I think you're _friend_ is mad. Having a mental breakdown."

"I happen to be quite sane. It's you lot that should be worried."

Both girls froze. How was that possible? Hearing Ann's whisper to Donna? Ann felt her stomach churning.

"Have excellent hearing. Didn't mean to eavesdrop. I know; it's a bit like cheating." The Doctor explained. "But still, I have to know. Your names." His tone became more clipped and the girls looked at each other.

 _There has to be a back door._ Ann decided as she exchanged a glance with Chloe. In that moment, they both decided to run. One exit was blocked. They had to find another.

"Wasn't that the guy from the hotel?" Chloe yelled over the beating music as they ran deeper into the room. They were heading towards the back wall, but Chloe spotted a door on the side of the room instead. She grabbed her friend's hand and pulled her in the right direction, as the party-goers around them broke into a chorus of 'Scooby-Dooby-Doo,' with a remix of the old song.

One of the guests, dressed as Dracula, opened the door they were fleeing towards, but, as soon as he did, a giant monster bat lunged through the door, swooping on the unsuspecting man. His bloodcurdling scream tore through the room. Ann and Chloe froze in their tracks and other guests nearby began to run and scream, while those further away from the commotion cheered, hearing the cries but not seeing the carnage, thinking it was all part of the fun. They soon learned the truth however, as the monstrous creature tore into the room, claiming another victim.

The two girls were jostled by the terrified mob as everyone tried to flee in every direction all at once. Hands grabbed them, pulling them along, and it took Chloe a moment to recognise the man whom had kidnapped them in the first place.

"Quick! Out the front door!" he yelled. But when he reached it, he saw even more creatures swooping on the escaping partygoers. "Or not." He quickly scanned the room. "This way!" He pulled the two curious girls with him, hoping Donna was close behind, and he led them into an adjoining room, a dank kitchen. He hustled as many people through the door as he could before slamming it in the path of the black creatures that followed after them.

The room was a cacophony of noise as everyone spoke over each other, all demanding answers from the other equally oblivious guests. The Doctor yelled a number of times, but couldn't be heard over the din. Finally, his sharp whistle brought everyone's attention to him.

"Thank you," he said, frustration evident in his voice. "Now can all of you sit quiet for one moment so I can hear!" He glared around the room and was rewarded with a fearful silence, apart from the muffled music coming in through the door. He turned, pulling a stethoscope from his pocket and listening at the door. After a moment he lowered it, his features grim. "It's quiet. There's no one left," he murmured to Donna.

She covered her mouth with her hands, recognising what he was saying, while another voice spoke up disparagingly. "That's because they all escaped."

Immediately the room broke out in a tumultuous roar of noise that the Doctor had to fight to be heard over again.

"Listen to me. Listen to me!" He glared around the room once more. "Those creatures are called reapers. There is a wound in time somewhere here, and they will destroy everything that has been infected by it. Now if you all want to live, you need to listen to me and do exactly what I tell you."

He paused, letting his ringing words settle on the crowd.

"Now, first, tell me. The disruptions in this house are bad enough that even you humans, with your incredibly limited temporal perception, can sense it. That unease, that feeling that you want to be anywhere else. So what are you all doing here?"

"It's a Halloween party," someone chirped up from the safety of the crowd.

"Best place for Halloween is a haunted house," another voice added from the other side of the kitchen.

The Doctor shook his head, marvelling once more at human stupidity. "Humans," he scoffed. "It's like you go looking for trouble. There's a dangerous house that ever instinct says we should stay away from. What should we do? I know, let's throw a party there!"

"Doctor!" Donna snapped. "Insult us later. What do we do?"

"You know," he continued, seeming to ignore the question. "You know what's most curious about this? It's not the house that feels wrong. It's not the people that walked like lambs to a slaughter. It's not even the monsters out there eating people." He pointed across the room, directly at Ann and Chloe who were hiding towards the back of the crowd, both fearful of the monsters and of the man whom had seemingly brought them to the monsters house and then forgotten about them. "It's you two, who recognised me when I've never met you and who are from about fifty odd years in the past, based on your clothes and technology. So, tell me, who are you two?"

"As if you don't already know!" Ann exclaimed in disgust. "You brought us here!"

"I see." He said, pivoting in place, heading towards them. "I brought you here. Must have been for a reason." Removing a metal device, he started to scan them. "Highly charged static particles where the frequency is out of phase." The Doctor glanced back at Donna. "They're broadcasting a signal. I just need to figure out why." He made one step closer as Ann, not trusting the silvery object that emitted the disturbing sound, slapped it out of his hand. Falling on the floor, Chloe heard him curse in a language she didn't understand. She picked up the instrument, breathing hard, looking between the door where the monstrous sounds were being emitted and the Doctor himself. The person who brought them to this distorted environment.

"What were you doing?" Chloe demanded. "What was this for?" She rose up the device in her hand.

"A diagnostic tool." The Doctor attempted to remain calm, holding out his hand. "If you want to survive, I need it back."

"Need it back." Ann simply stared at him. "All of this is happening because of you. Those things outside. You brought them here. Somehow you…" She looked at him in terror. It all seemed to line up. His arrival at the front door of their hotel room under false pretenses. Their sudden loss of consciousness and waking up only to the chaos that followed.

"No, I just got here, remember?" He paused. "But you two, you're out of place, aren't you? Now that's intriguing. Why you both are here and…" He moved so fast that Ann could barely perceive his movements. One moment he was standing in place and the next, the instrument was torn out of her hand.

They stared at him in shock. No one could possibly move that quickly, bringing to light one steady conclusion. "You're not human." Chloe managed, feeling sweat trickle down the back of her neck. Indeed, he had the appearance of a man but she started to wonder, his malicious intent as yet to be unveiled since he was the one that brought them here, did he have more in common with the monsters outside the door?

"Nope." He said, popping the 'p'. "Not a human. Time Lord. Now that we got that out of the way-"

"You're insane." Ann muttered, backing towards the door. She had difficulty even thinking straight and this person was a predator. Her instincts were clear. He was exceedingly dangerous. Suddenly, she knew her chances were better with the supposed monsters in the living room than the one who was trying to keep them caged in here.

"Spaceman, you have to-" Donna started but Ann already ran outside the door, hearing him shout behind her. Out the kitchen, into the living room only to see them. The creatures flying right above her. Like giant misshapen bats with vicious teeth and claws. Their eyes suddenly fixed on her as they swooped as a ferocious, mythological harpy would, single minded on its prey. She screamed as arms wrapped around her waist, attempting to pull her away. She was tumbling backward. It was her kidnapper but he was too late. Much too late. Its claws were already tearing into her skin, sinking into flesh and then….

Xxxxxxxxxxxx

Ann and Chloe were suddenly sitting on the couch, watching the same party-goers dancing in the middle of the decrepit living room. The man in the mummy costume was talking to them. Ann looked at him in disbelief as he drunkenly swayed in place. The monsters were gone. Chloe was looking around as she scrambled to standing position.

"Seems like you two need a drink." The mummy said and Ann stared at Chloe, licking her lips.

"What's going on?" Chloe whispered, massaging her temples. The dizziness they both felt was now so palpable and Ann just shook her head.

 _Madness._ Ann thought. They were back where they started. Had they both truly lost their mind? _Insanity._ She thought of the expression Albert Einstein used. _Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results._ She shivered, hearing a familiar voice emanate from the front door.

"Well, hello there."

They both turned to see the man who identified himself as the Doctor. He looked at them, his expression a mixture of fascination and bewilderment. "Don't I know you?"

xxxxxxxxxxxx

"Ann! You're okay!" Chloe said in utter relief, pulling the other woman into a quick hug. She was feeling so confused. One moment she was mourning the death of her friend while trying to stay alive herself, and the next she was sitting beside her as if nothing had happened. "What's going on? Are we still here? How can we still be here?"

"I don't know. I thought..." Ann shook her head, the memory or the creature clawing at her as she tried to run. She looked around the room, appearing exactly as it had done when they woke up the last time.

"This is why I don't do Halloween," Chloe murmured. "Bad dreams. I thought-" She bit her lip. "I thought a monster got you. You and this guy that had kidnapped us." She looked around the room, trying to hold back tears. "But it was here, this room. Am I still dreaming?"

"Only if we both are," Ann stated. "Come on, let's get out of here before it happens again."

She jumped to her feet, holding her friend's hand and pulling her along, determined that they both escape and stick together. She managed to get them both to the front door, but when she yanked it open, their kidnapper stood before them, just as he had the last time.

He looked at them, his expression a mixture of fascination and bewilderment. "Don't I know you?"

"No!" Chloe stuttered as she backed away. "He died. He's dead. He can't be here."

His sharp eyes turned to her, studying her with a penetrating intensity, but his gaze was brought back to the other retreating woman as she spoke again.

"Why did you bring us here? What do you want with us?" she yelled.

"So, we've met then." He nodded briefly. He could feel the time distortions echoing around the place. The wound that was festering, which drew him here. He had to close it but he felt the distant pulse of a headache just by being near them. Not just a wound. A paradox. He could sense it. But how did it involve these two seemingly normal human girls that were fifty years out of time, given the state of their attire? _Unless they're costumes?_ But he was inclined to rule this out as an option given their reactions to his presence.

"You don't remember coming to our hotel room and kidnapping us?" Ann was furious. She was pondering whether he had given them drugs to cause their senses to be altered. She thought she was dying before when that creature grabbed hold of her and then….she took a deep breath. "We're not doing this again." In that decision, they threw both their weights in pushing past him, choosing to exit near where his red headed accomplice, Donna was standing, her seemingly less formidable than their assailant.

Donna was winded, tripping over the threshold, nearly falling to the ground herself only for the Doctor to grab her arm, keeping her upright, near the railing, before turning, moving rapidly so he blocked the girls descent from the porch to the path below that led to the street.

"I need you to stay here until I figure this out." It was clear the girls had more information. Information he somehow wasn't privy to despite his time sensitive nature. They certainly knew him and a quick scan showed they were out of phase. Slightly. "Out of phase. Accelerated static particles. Where did you come into contact with that? And why are you out of phase?" He was muttering aloud the questions that he was asking himself.

Chloe was shaking her head at this man's bizarre behavior. "I don't know what you're talking about. We just want to leave." All the events seemed to shuffle through her mind. "If you let us go, we both promise we won't tell anyone what you did. There's no harm right?" She grimaced slightly. There had been harm. She had seen or thought she saw people die. Thought she saw Ann die. "We don't know you and no one will believe us anyway considering those flying monsters…."

"Flying monsters." The Doctor repeated staring at them.

"Right." Ann said, taking her cue from Chloe. "Crazy isn't it. And you being an alien lord of something, who is going to believe that? So we are not going to bother with it and just be on our way…." She tried to walk past him only for him to take her arm, grimacing, but refusing their request for departure.

"I'm sorry." He said. "But I need you two to stay here with me, just for now." He paused, glancing at Donna who was examining him in a manner that he attributed to doubt. Inhaling through his nose. "You both have information that I need and there's one way I know how to get it." He frowned, the urgency of the time distortions in the area were pressing. He swallowed, shaking his head in some regret. "I really wish I had more time but I don't."

Ann suddenly let out a cry as his fingers flew to her temples, feeling an invasive presence just inside her mind. It felt like….she tried to struggle. Tried to move. She was absolutely frozen. "Don't fight this." The Doctor advised. "It shouldn't hurt if you don't resist."

Chloe watched in horror. Was he really an alien? And then she knew, whatever he was doing to Ann, she was surely next.

Her expression turned into a snarl. "No! Let her go!" She couldn't hit him properly with how he was restraining her friend, but she pounded him with her fists, hitting him as though she was wielding a hammer, but he didn't even seem to notice her.

"It's a time loop," he declared suddenly, letting the girl go but still blocking her from leaving. "The same events happening over and over, on a cycle. But for some reason, you both remember it." He turned to face Chloe. "You lived longer on the last loop. I need you to show me what happened after she died."

"No! What are you talking about?" she demanded, pulling her friend closer and away from the crazy Doctor whatzit.

"He... He was in my head," Ann murmured, her voice as faint as the colour on her face. This couldn't be real. This couldn't be happening, there weren't monster bats that killed you and brought you back to life to kill you again. There weren't men who could shove their thoughts into other people's minds.

"Doctor..." Donna called from just behind him.

"I promise I'll be gentle, but I need to know everything I can to-"

"Doctor!" Donna yelled again, thumping him on the shoulder, violently drawing his attention.

"What? What is it?" he demanded harsh, frustrated by the interruption when he was very busy. He followed the line of her finger. "Ahh..." he said, in anticlimactic surprise, watching the reaper flying above them. "Inside! Inside!" he yelled as it began swooping towards them, grabbing Donna and shoving the three women through the door before him.

He glanced about the room, recognising the scene from Ann's memories.

"Scooby-doo..." Chloe whispered, and he looked towards the door that a vampire was approaching.

"No, don't open that-" his voice boomed, but it was too late, and the man was devoured a second time. "The kitchen! Everyone in the kitchen!" the Time Lord commanded, ensuring both of the unique and unwilling party guests, and also his companion, were part of the throng that escaped to safety.

"This isn't right. We've done this already," Chloe whispered in trepidation to her friend as they hid at the back of the room.

The Doctor stood over the sink as he brought the room to order, glad for the high ceilings in the olden style house.

"Now listen," He started. "Listen to me. Those creatures outside are called-"

"Reapers." Chloe muttered quietly. She remembered what the crazy Doctor had said before the events started to repeat themselves. Why was he saying it all over again? She clutched tightly to Ann, knowing she spoke only a whisper but suddenly his voice cut off as he stared at her. _There is no way…_

He raised his eyebrows. "You know what they are, then? Good." He took a step towards them. "This must seem a bit like repetition but you see, I can't remember the time loops, yet you can."

"He must be on something." One of the party-goers muttered. "Best haunted house yet and we're missing all the fun."

The Doctor could only turn on the drunken and disorderly crowd. "Alright. Just to make this clear, those are reapers. Real monsters that will eat you all alive." He inhaled sharply. "If I don't fix this, they will consume everyone in this house. Still consider that fun?"

A violent banging started on the wall with the sound of claws against wood. The door was shaking and the Doctor raced forward wielding his screwdriver, welding the metal shut.

"Doctor…" Donna started.

"One moment, Donna." He pressed his hands against the wood, listening to the creatures. How many were there? How severe was this wound in time and how much time did he have to fix this? He paused. Time. The two girls who were here and able to remember each time loop. He extended his senses, closing his eyes. That was it. Each time bubble was constricting by a few micro-spans a piece. The time loops weren't perfect, which meant eventually if he didn't find the cause, the tear in reality would become a gaping hole large enough to engulf the planet. _And more….._

"Oi! Spaceman! Listen to me!" Donna's voice was so persistent that it broke off his concentration as he turned.

"What is it? I have to localise…" He suddenly paused, assessing the crowd before looking at his companion. "Where did the girls go?" His face suddenly became rigid.

"That's what I've been tellin' you." Donna said. "Think they ran into the basement." She was shaking her head. "You coming off the way you do, what did you expect?" She had heard what the girls said and knew what it felt like to have the Doctor inside her mind when she visited the Ood. But she had consented and been prepared. She knew that some people weren't ready for this life, which she had chosen but those girls suddenly being thrust into a situation completely outside their depths….she grimaced remembering her reaction all too clearly being terrified, in her wedding dress and suddenly in the TARDIS. She had refused to be his companion when he first asked her. She simply wasn't ready and she knew it. It took time and consideration to come to the decision that she would accept the offer of being his passenger should he offer it again. _Those poor things._ She thought of the girls. She didn't even know their names and they didn't appear to be in the disposition to volunteer that information.

She watched the Doctor start to jog in that direction and immediately put a hand on his arm. "Be gentle." She told him with a tone of fierceness.

"I was." He insisted. "As much as I can. I don't have a choice. I need to find out what's in the other girl's mind and…"

"Then try talking to them first." She told him. "Patiently. Think. They said they think you kidnapped them. What does that tell you?"

"They're human and just a bit melodramatic." When Donna socked him on the arm, he raised his eyebrows. "Alright, I'll do the best I can." He cleared his throat. "But keep everyone else here while I see about them." He exhaled slowly and continued his progress as Donna tried to keep a semblance of order to the drunken crowd. It was going to be a very long night notwithstanding the time loops.

 _At least I made sure to lock the door._ He thought to himself in a morbid fashion. _Buys me a few minutes this time around._

Xxxxxxxxxxx

"Please, someone, you have to help us." Ann was starting to record a live feed using Ustream in tandem with uploading short videos to her YouTube account. For some reason, invariably odd to them, they were able to access the network to use the Internet but they couldn't dial out to any phone numbers. So, this is was her second best option and she didn't know what kind of response she would get. "We can't call the police but we are in this house in South Devon, England. Out in the moors near the town, brought here by this man who kidnapped us out of our hotel room." She swallowed. "He's locked all the doors and…" Her breathing was shallow. "I think it drugs or something that he's given us. Made it feel like he was inside my head. We managed to hide in the basement…" There was a loud clatter and the sound of footsteps.

"Ann, he's coming." Chloe warned her. "We have to hide."

"Please…." Ann struggled. "Please someone call the police. Send this footage before-" She was interrupted as Chloe pulled her away towards the back but in their haste, the phone fell from her sweaty palm while still recording. There was no time to retrieve it as both girls hid in the darkness behind a massive amounts of shelving that seemed to be used to store various canned items. The smell of rotten fruit was evident to their nostrils. That singular musty scent that made it wretched to even breathe. They could only stare through the cracks in the shelves as the man bent down to pick up the phone, examining it with some interest before looking around the basement.

"I just want to talk." He started, his voice echoing through the room. He was greeted with nothing but silence. They weren't going to make this easy. "Alright, listen. I know you're scared but you're both here for a reason. You're remembering the time loops for a reason. I can help make them stop but in order to do that, I need you to help me."

Ann glanced at Chloe and shook her head. He was crazy, likely only buying time until the police would arrive. No, she had to remain silent until they were safe to-

She suddenly gasped in surprise when she heard a tone from Chloe's cell phone being issued. _How did that…._ Ann looked at the man who was holding that metal device directly over her phone. _My contact list with Chloe's phone number. He used it somehow…._ He was looking in their direction immediately as soon as the tone sounded before heading towards the shelves. Ann was overcome by panic. Their hiding place had now been exposed.

"It's okay. It's okay," he assured them, holding up his hands as he moved around in front of them, acting non threatening, but quickly cutting off their only retreat hoping they wouldn't see the intention in his movements. "I just need to talk to you." He didn't move any closer, and they, likewise, didn't move from their spot. "I know you're both afraid, that you don't know what's going on. I don't know either, but I intend to find out and stop it." He slowly lowered his hands and crouched down to their level. "Now, remember, it's not just you two. There is a whole room full of people upstairs whose lives are in danger. I can save them, but I need your help."

The two girls nervously exchanged a glance, but still didn't come out to him.

"I'm the Doctor," he told them. "You already seem to know this. Can you tell me your names?" He already knew their names. He'd heard them in Ann's mind, but he was trying to get them to open up to him as gently as possible.

"Chloe," the blonde answered, her voice soft and shaking slightly.

"Ann," the other girl followed.

"Nice to meet you, Chloe and Ann. Now, Chloe," he began, narrowing in on her. "You said I died. Can you tell me what happened?"

Chloe glanced nervously at her friend again. "The monster got you," she said after a pause. "Ann ran away and you followed her. A monster..." her voice shook as she broke off. "It was just a dream. It didn't happen."

"It's okay, but I need you to tell me the dream," he pressed, knowing it was anything but. "Tell me how I died."

"The monster got Ann," she said, her voice stuttering slightly. "You tried to pull her away, but she..." She gulped convulsively. "Then you tried to run away, and it got you. And then it got into the kitchen, and everyone was screaming and-" she broke off again, shivering at the memory of being enveloped by the darkness of the creatures wings, how it clawed at her body, tearing her apart. She thought she was dying. She thought it was killing her. "But then I woke up. It wasn't real."

He looked at them both with sympathy. They both died and could remember dying. There were few who could claim that. He could, but again, that was very different. "I'm sorry," he told them gently. "I'm so sorry. We're stuck in a time loop. The same events repeating over and over. The reapers are trying to close the wound, but if we can't find what's causing it, it will only make the tear worse."

Chloe clenched her hands together, feeling her heart flutter inside her chest. "So, it wasn't a dream. It was real." She glanced at Ann. "We died for real." Horror bloomed inside her mind. "We'll continue to die for real." Did this Doctor really bring them here to trap them in a living continual nightmare?

"Not if I can stop it but that's where I need your assistance." He glanced down at the phone he was holding. Now that was interesting. The distortions of the time loop should have prevented any mobile phone from receiving a signal even with his modifications but upon closer examination the girls were able to access the Internet network in their own time frame. _How did they…?_ He raised his eyebrows. The phones were slightly out of phase while at the same time, transmitting a discreet set of coded radio waves on a frequency being conducted through a localized rift. The same set of binary numbers were being inundated on the screen in a repeating loop. "A loop." He muttered. "You're the transmitters. Your phones are broadcasting the location of the source of the wound." He was talking excitedly. "It's the base station projecting an alternating out of phase signal, which you're both conducting in sequence with your phones so I should be able to find the origin point…." He started to trail as he concentrated on their phones with apparent intrigue. _How to use this…_

Ann glanced at Chloe. She didn't really follow half of what he was talking about but managed to garner the point where their phones were somehow able to giving him the location he needed to fix the problem he said they were trapped in.

"So," She shivered, a sensation of dizziness overcame her but she tried to regain her voice. She had never been so scared in all her life and she had a few near misses. Everyone feared the prospect of death considering it was such unknown territory but now she was faced with something she had considered utterly impossible. Dying repeatedly without any recourse of how to bring it to an end. The person responsible for their position stood directly in front of them. "So…." She wrapped her arms around herself. "You just need our phones, right? You can find it and fix it with our phones?"

The Doctor looked at her, his expression filled with regret. They were scared. Of course they were scared and they were human. A human wasn't used to dying multiple times. These were extraordinary circumstances. He sighed. "I can't just use your phones. I'm so sorry but I need you two. There is a special static energy field encompassing you both and the phones are simply reproducing the residual temporal signature each of you are giving off so…" He noticed their confusion. "Do either of you know much about computer hardware? How they work?"

"Sort of." Ann admitted. "I installed some storage drives to my PC for some advertising projects but what does that have to do with…?"

"More than you think. Okay." He started over. "Your body produces natural static right?"

"Yeah." Ann pressed her lips together. "I have to wear this static guard so I don't short anything out."

"It grounds your body from producing a static current at the opposing magnetic frequency." He explained.

"But what does that have to do with anything?" Chloe was bewildered and utterly frustrated.

"Magnets. One has a positive charge and one has a negative charge." He said simply.

"So the time wound is a magnet and we have the wrong charge?" Ann struggled to clarify.

"On the contrary." The Doctor said. "You both have the right charge. That's what your phones are telling me." He paused. "The rest of us don't." He looked at them intensely. "That's why you can remember the time loops and that's why I need you to help me fix it."

Suddenly, there was screaming that was taking place just above them. Horrible sounds. People obviously dying in agony. "Oh God, help us." Ann muttered as the Doctor raced forward, shutting the door to the basement and fixing the lock into place. Chloe looked around in desperation for another exit but all the windows to this semi basement had been boarded.

"Listen to me." He said urgently, grabbing Ann's wrist, pressing the phone back into her palm. "Record everything you can. This has still been broadcasting and the next time, I won't remember. I need all the information. Every loop, there's entropy. It will shorten."

"We're going to die?" Chloe started, feeling her horror and desperation build inside her. "Again?"

"I'm sorry. I only bought us a little time but remember what I said when you-"

The basement door broke open. Reapers flooded into the room like a gigantic swarm. Massive, hovering bats with blood already dripping from their claws. Both girls started to scream before running into the deepest corner they could find.

The sounds they made her unearthly as Ann clutched the phone tightly, her thoughts racing frantically. It was still streaming live. "Oh God, this is it! We're going to die! We're going to-"

The phone flew out of her hands as the reapers found their prey once again. Their cries and the tearing of flesh was still being recorded as the number of views started to increase, ticking steadily upwards while both girls appeared to die in front of the viewer's eyes, streaming the content, several watching the videos in avid, morbid fascination.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Don't I know you?" The Doctor asked, raising his eyebrows.

The girls could only look at him horrified. At one moment, they were dying and the next they were standing in front of the door, seeing the Doctor and Donna, again. Everything was happening again.

Ann felt bile in her throat and immediately she fell to her knees starting to vomit, heaving uncontrollably. Chloe overwhelmed by a sensation of vertigo, gripped the door to keep from falling, trying to blink away the dark spots that occluded her vision. _I can't pass out._ She told herself. _I can't…_

"Oh, it's still early and you're both done over already." One of the party-goers mocked. "Come on now! It's Halloween!"

"We can't die again." Chloe could only speak faintly. "Please, already happened twice. Not again. Just not…."

"Again?" Donna asked the Doctor. "What are they talkin' about?" A look of fear crossed the companion's face as a sudden serious expression stole over the Doctor's. He was immediately stepping over the threshold, quick to examine these peculiar girls, his sonic already in his hand.

"Doctor?" The red head followed, insisting on an explanation as he started to crouch down in front of the two.

"Can you stop it this time?" Chloe begged. "Please tell me you can stop it this time."

"Stop what? What's happening?" he demanded seriously. More and more he felt like time was fragmenting around them. A change would come, as if in jumps, first as they were coming up the garden path, then again closer to the house, and now standing before these two women. It felt to him like at random intervals, reality was being put under exponentially more strain, and he feared what would happen if the increases continued with him unable to stop it.

"No," Chloe realised. "He's forgotten again."

Her very words felt ominous to him, and he knew he needed to find out what was going on, but as he decided they had knowledge he needed, the other woman held her phone out to him.

"I don't know if it works, but you told us to keep recording."

He took the phone, quickly buzzing it with his silver instrument. Images rapidly flickered over the screen. A high pitch noise emitted from the device, higher than chipmunk voices and speaking far more rapidly. The video cut off suddenly, and the Doctor handed her phone back. "Keep recording," he instructed before holding out his hand towards the blonde. "Phone, I need your phone," he said, stress evident in his voice.

"Doctor, what is it?" Donna asked again, worried to see him so serious so suddenly.

"It's a loop. A time loop. It's getting shorter each time," he explained rapidly, taking the second phone. "You two have somehow been made immune to some of its effects. Not all of them, but some of them. You both remember each loop, when even I don't."

"But, what was it about the phones? You said you could use them," Ann said.

"Last loop, I embedded a program to determine the source of the tear using the signal and electrical discharge your bodies are giving off. You're broadcasting the general location. I'm helping to narrow it down. Now let's see..."

He was interrupted by Donna's cry behind him - "Doctor!" - and he turned to see a reaper swooping at them from the sky.

"In! In! Get in!" he hurried them through the door, slamming it quickly just before the creature reached them.

"Scooby-Doo," Chloe whispered, recognising the song, and she fearfully glanced back at the Vampire who was about to open a door that would let the monsters in.

The Doctor, though, held up his screwdriver, pointing it at the door and fusing the mechanism. "We've got seconds," he warned his companions. He glanced at his sonic before nodding in confirmation. "Upstairs."

"But-" Ann started. What about everyone else? Where would they hide when-

"Now!" He exclaimed, pushing them forward to the rickety staircase just as two reapers broke through the door and attacked the people in the living room. There was screaming and….Chloe felt her own stomach start to churn. Those sickening wet sounds of flesh being torn asunder. People were being eaten alive again as the Doctor, Ann, Chloe and Donna were only just on the steps.

"What about them?" Ann managed. "Leaving them to just get eaten…"

"If we don't close this wound, it won't matter what the reapers do here." The Doctor said. "There is a crack. A gaping hole in time. The reapers come in to sterilize that damage except if the wound doesn't close, more reapers will get in. They'll go on to sterilize the entire planet and when they're done with Earth, move on to sterilize the next world."

They were being hustled along across the wooden planks of the second floor. The Doctor was scanning one room, then another. Suddenly, one of the wooden beams that made up the floor started to give. Chunks of rotten wood fell apart as Chloe lost her footing with a scream. Immediately as Chloe started to fall, Ann lurched forward, seizing her friend's arm as Chloe screamed in panic. The number of reapers were increasing beneath her swinging legs. Two were clawing at her feet dangling below.

"Just hold on!" Ann begged. "Please, just…." But her palm was sweaty. "Doctor!"

The Doctor turned but he was too late. Ann couldn't maintain her hold as Chloe's fingers slid out of her hand. "Ann. I can't…"

And just as the Doctor was reaching for Chloe did the girl fall into the vortex of darkness and monsters that waited below. Ann couldn't hear the thud her friend was sure to make. Would the creatures get to her first? Did the fall kill her? "Chloe!" She couldn't think straight. She bolted for the stairs to get to her fallen friend. What if this loop was the last one? She would be leaving Chloe to her death. She couldn't-

The Doctor moved so quickly, he was a blur. He wrapped his arms around her waist pulling her back while she struggled against him.

"What are you doing?" She shouted at him. "We have to help her!"

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. We can't. Not there's no time. The reapers will have gotten to her first. There's still more I need to find out. I have to have you with me for that, Ann" His tone was firm. They were the only ones with full memory of the loops and one was gone. _Gone this time._ But he still required information. If he was going to mend the tear in reality, he needed to locate the source. But Ann was starting to break down and the Doctor felt his hearts go out to her hearing her relentless weeping. _The human mind wasn't meant for this much stress._ His hold on her relaxed, becoming supportive as she cried.

"I couldn't hold her." Ann said. "I tried..I tried so hard."

"I know you did." He said, keeping his voice soothing. "It was an accident. Nothing you could of done."

"How many times are we going to die?" Ann nearly wanted to give up. It was a torture she never imagined experiencing. Dying repeatedly. Watching her friend die in front of her. Would she ever see her family again? She thought she believed in a higher power once but…this wasn't the way death was supposed to work. There was no heaven. No paradise. One maddening loop after another. It was chaos. What had she done to deserve this as her penance? What had Chloe done?

"Listen to me." His voice was sympathetic yet commanding at the same time. "I mean, really listen. I'm going to do everything I can to make it stop. But to do that, I need your help, alright? We're running out of time and if the erosion continues, it won't stop at this house. It will spread like an infectious disease to the rest of the planet. Do you understand? Know who else is at risk?"

"Everyone else." Ann finally said. "My family." She cringed at the thought of what they could suffer at the hands or 'claws' of these reapers. "The world."

The Doctor let out a breath. It was some headway. "Exactly." He paused as he glanced down at the girl's phone. "Okay, I think the time distortions are coming from the end of the room."

Barely able to get inside, they all examined the room with a frown. For the source of the time distortions, it looked ordinary and abandoned, much like the rest of the house. The Doctor was avidly scanning and muttering under his breath while Ann surveyed her environment. What if they never survived this? Maybe this was how she would die. There were so many things she wanted to say to her family but she couldn't reach them. Not like this. With phone service down and only the Internet to communicate….. _the internet._ She paused at the idea.

 _I should send a message to Caitlin._ Ann thought. As it stood, she was the only one that might believe some of the craziness that was going on. If she could send messages to family, it was likely Caitlin, being the conspiracy theorist she was, was still on her computer. She was quickly typing a message to Caitlin's Twitter account, managing to link the Ustream feed.

She only managed a brief few words before the doors started to burst in. "Caitlin, you're the only one who would believe us but…." She paused. "Chloe and I, we got trapped in a house filled with monsters. We've been dying each time only to wake up and start the whole thing over again. Please, tell my parents that-"

The reapers had barged in just as the Doctor was examining the fireplace. "I found it. Well, an entrance. It's a secret passage. These old homes with all their nooks and-"

"Doctor!" Donna barely gave a shout of warning before the reapers pounced on her to consume her.

He shoved Ann behind him. "Keep recording. Remember, secret passage at the fireplace. Next time you see me, don't hesitate." He exhaled through his nose. "We need every minute we can get."

The Doctor had no time to access the secret passage before the reaper swooped on him finding him the most appetizing meal in the room, being the oldest of everyone there. Then they all turned their sights to Ann.

"God help me." Ann muttered, closing her eyes, falling to her knees as the reapers circled around her before they decided to tear into next victim.

xxxxxxxxxx

The Doctor was just pressing the button on his sonic to lock the door across the room, when he felt reality lurch around him once more. "Did we just loop?" he asked the two girls, who looked decidedly queasy, despite being certain of the answer already.

Chloe was running her hands over her body as if making sure she was okay or searching for invisible insects that were creeping over her, while Ann doubled over clutching her abdomen, looking like she was about to enter a full panic attack.

"Upstairs?" he asked, his voice sounding like a demand. Each loop was getting shorter. He might have remembered more at the beginning than he apparently did on the other loops, but that simply meant he had less time to work with, that they were that much closer to dying. If he made the wrong choice at this juncture, they might never loop back far enough to be able to fix it in time.

Ann nodded. "There was a fireplace. A secret passage."

"Show me," he demanded again, hustling the women and his companion towards the stairs.

This time, three reapers broke into the room as they fled, falling upon the defenceless crowd. "There's more of them," Chloe cried. I thought the loops were the same. How can there be more of them?"

The Doctor didn't answer until they'd successfully fled from the room of screams. "Time is decaying. Think of a bathtub full of water. You pull the plug out and the water spins round and round, repeating itself as it drains away. Each repeat is less. There are differences each time. The water level changes, as does the sound of the water draining away changes, becoming worse. The reapers aren't part of normal time. They can hear the bath draining. The lower the water gets, the more that show up to try to plug the wound." He glanced around the rundown hallway as he reined his explanation in. He didn't have time. "Where is it?" he asked the to loopers.

"This way," Ann said, taking the lead. "Avoid that one," she added, pointing at the wooden support that had failed Chloe on the last loop. She swallowed. She could still hear her friends dying scream ringing in her ears even though she was only a few steps behind her.

They quickly reached the fireplace, which the Doctor began to inspect.

There were still no reapers in sight, so Donna stepped up to Chloe, who was shivering almost uncontrollably. "How are you doing, Sweetheart," she asked kindly, already knowing the answer was 'Not good', but wanting to help. She couldn't remember the loops. She could only remember walking up to the house, the Doctor getting more and more antsy, meeting the girls and running for her life. She felt like she was missing half a conversation when they spoke with the Doctor. And these two, they remembered dying. How many times had they died now? How many times had she, yet she couldn't remember?

Chloe just shook her head. "I just want to go home," she practically whimpered.

Ann reached over, pulling her friend into a hug, and they both clung to each other for support.

"Over here, all of you!" the Doctor called impatiently. He wasn't trying to be cruel, but he needed to stay ahead of the loops and the reapers.

"What I don't get, is why the house is so run down," Donna commented as she grabbed the mantle to hold herself next to him.

"There tear has been here for a while. Years, decades maybe. The structure has been decayed by far more time than the house has stood. It was some critical incident that finally tipped it in to final atrophy, these loops. It could have simply been the culmination of time and decay, but I'm not so sure," he explained, studying the two women out of the corner of his eye. It seemed utterly beyond coincidence that two women from out of their own time should arrive at the same moment the loops began. More likely, it was their arrival that triggered the final collapse of reality. However, the addition of two time travellers into the fray shouldn't have had that sort of stress effect of the tear, otherwise it would be he and Donna who were paramount in resolving the disturbance rather than Ann and Chloe. He wished he had more time to understand who they were and why, of all people, his future self chose them. Was it simply to resolve the paradox? He didn't think so, but he didn't have the time to work it out.

The fireplace spun clunkily, before chugging to a stop just passed half way. The three women stepped off into the room while he momentarily fought with the mechanism, trying to force it to close. He couldn't. If the reapers got through the wooden door on the other side of the room, they could come straight through the open gap the fireplace left. He couldn't even seal it back the other way.

"Doctor," Donna called back over her shoulder, her eyes fixed on the room.

The difference between it and the rest of the house was remarkable. A perfectly new and freshly varnished wooden table sat against one wall, a comfortable looking chair before it, looking for all intents and purposes like a work desk. There was electronic equipment strewn upon the desk and throughout the room. The floor was carpeted and there were bookshelves lining the walls. But there was a clear line of decay. The carpet was pristine, white and perfect, with the wooden table at its epicentre, but outside a circle of perfection, where the books were fresh and the wood sound, the carpet had rotted to nothing. Books had turned to dust, and the sofa against the opposite wall have collapsed in on itself, holes riddling the fabric.

"The eye of the storm," the Doctor commented, carefully approaching, but not crossing the line of decay. He walked around the circle, pointing at the floor. "See these concentric circles? The loops are closing. There's not long left." He walked around the desk, still keeping his distance as he searched for the object in the perfect centre of the anomaly.

"Vortex manipulator," he spat. People with no understanding messing with time. "Looks like an early model. Prototype, perhaps."

"What is?" Donna asked, not knowing what he was looking at.

"The large leather watch," he indicated. "I need to get a closer look at it, but I have a very bad feeling about crossing this line. Touch the wrong thing, and it could trigger a cascade failure. No more loops. No more anything else."

"So, what do we do?" Donna asked again. She could hear the screech of the reapers behind them. Hear them banging against the door. See the rattling of the wood and the dust falling. "Doctor?" she urged.

"All of you, whatever happens, do not cross this line!" he ordered, pointing at them, as the outer door gave another banging groan as the creatures sought entrance. He took a breath and stepped closer to the desk.

"Doctor!" his companion screamed as he shimmered out of existence as he crossed the line, the very image of him wobbling and fading like a mirage. There was nothing left.

It was at that moment that the wood splintered behind them, and the reapers flooded in, crawling through the gap and around the walls in the room before them, quickly approaching the open fire place.

"Get behind me!" Donna shouted, holding her arms out wide and pushing the terrified girls deeper into the room. "Now, listen," she said to the first creature that prowled into the room. "We're trying to help. We're trying to stop the-"

Her voice cut off with a scream at the monster bat launched itself at her, she pushed back, retreating as fast as she could, until she too disappeared in a shimmer just as the Doctor had done. Ann and Chloe screamed, huddling into tiny balls on the floor, waiting for the tear of claws that they had felt too many times before.

Xxxxxxxxxxx

They were already on the stairs heading up to the second floor as reality reset around them. Ann and Chloe grabbed hold of the bannister as Donna looked at them concerned. "Doctor." She started. "Did it happen again? The loop you were talking about?" Donna looked around. "Doctor?" She didn't see him. Where had he gone?

Ann and Chloe glanced at each other. "Last time…" Chloe managed. "He went past the line. Said there was this vortex or…time device, a watch. But he just disappeared. Like he was never there."

"Never there?" Donna asked. No, that couldn't be right. She grabbed their hands, dragging them up the stairs the rest of the way. "What do you mean?"

"There was this line in the floor. He told us not to cross it but he did and then he was just gone." Ann managed. Now she was more terrified if that was possible. What if their soul hope for getting them out of this predicament had vanished for good? The rest of them would just be stuck until they ran out of loops and then….she swallowed, remembering what the Doctor had said before. "The room. We have to go to the back room." She knew what was causing the problem was still beyond that secret passage and in that very circle the Doctor pointed out. _But if we get there, how are we going to fix it without him?_

Chloe once again navigated around the rotten piece of flooring that gave way only for Ann to cry out as the railing she held onto, started to collapse to the side in a pile of desiccated wood. Chloe barely managed to seize her friend's arm to steady her before she fell over the side, remembering he own fatal plunge and she shuddered. Were they really trapped here? Did the Doctor disappear to abandon them to the monsters? She didn't know how much more of this she could really take. How many more times she could die before simply cracking and going insane.

"You two, we need to go." Donna commanded. Reapers were already heading up the stairs. They had already consumed everyone in the party. The three of them were next and Donna taking the initiative pushed them ahead of her as they ran down the corridor. Only seconds later did the red head stumble, letting out a shout. Ann and Chloe turned to glance behind them, watching in horror. It wasn't just a matter of a few rotten pieces of floor paneling. The entire staircase and part of the landing was collapsing. Splintering away. Chloe took a step in Donna's direction only to see the woman, dangling over the edge before she got torn in two, becoming a bloody carcas by a reaper only several feet away.

"Oh, God." The blond said as Ann stared in momentary shock at the horrible scene. The reapers now had their sights on them. Their death now seemed to stand only moments away….

Hands fell on their wrist yanking them back into the room before the door was slammed shut behind them. The Doctor was there. He was busily sonicking the door as the girls looked at him in shock as to his sudden appearance. But why wasn't he downstairs?

"We thought you were…" Ann didn't know how to finish the sentence. Dead? Eradicated? What was the right term to use?

"I know, I know. A time skip. I was already here and then the three of you weren't. The distortions are happening faster. Small time window sent me here while you three went back downstairs. If I can get to the source-" He started.

"You said it was a time watch or something." Chloe interrupted him. She was relieved he was still here but she still trapped in a house filled with those monsters. Creatures that were eating everything in sight. Whatever caused him to disappear at the start; she didn't want to have that same mistake occur again. "A vortex watch or-"

"Vortex manipulator." The Doctor finished, accessing the passage. "Muon energy. Highly unstable. Causes devastating results if depolarized towards time and space. Once I find it, I should be able to deactivate it."

"But you did." Ann tried. They were already heading down the secret passage to the room that held the device. "The line. You said not to cross the line on the floor and then you did. You just…." She was looking at the co-centric circles on the ground. There was barely any space left and she gazed at the Doctor who was studying it seriously. "You disappeared."

The Time Lord himself only nodded briefly before glancing at his sonic. The two human girls gave him a confirmation of what he just started to suspect. The vicinity around the device was only attune to them. Their signal and the one the vortex manipulator were broadcasting, both so slightly out of sync with normal time but now the only ones who could get close to the vortex manipulator. It was a decision he didn't like making but one he had to make nonetheless.

"I'm sorry." He said finally, turning to them. "I'm very, very sorry. I'm afraid it's up to you now."

"Wait, what does that mean?" Chloe demanded as she watched the Doctor work to start the fireplace pivot, sealing them in the hidden room they had located. He was buying as much time as he possibly could.

"You two are the only ones in temporal sync with the vortex manipulator. It needs to be shut down. I need you to take this." He pressed the sonic into Ann's hand as she shook her head.

"But, we can't!" She cried out. "We don't know how." The device he was forcing her to take looked utterly alien to her. There wasn't even a screen. How did she know how to use it? "We'll-"

"The sonic will adjust to the same feedback you're both radiating. It has a psychic and temporal sensor interface." He took a deep breath. The fate of the universe and he was leaving it to rest on two humans he only barely met. Still, in his time, he had to work with far worse. Far worse than two frightened girls. "I just need you both, once you enter the perimeter to think about deactivating the device. The settings will adjust. Press this button." It was the best he could do for now. There were over 2,500 settings on his sonic. Having them use the psychic function was the simplest and for humans especially in a critically stressful period, it was best to keep things uncomplicated.

Chloe stared at the sonic before glancing at the line of decay on the floor. She was shivering violently. "If….if this is the last loop, will Donna…the other party members…..?" She swallowed. Would this death be their real one?

The Doctor blinked. He was tempted to lie. To tell them it would be alright. If the loops had no decay, no entropy, time would likely reset but given what he saw and what he felt with his time senses, he couldn't be sure. He couldn't get access to the device to be absolutely definitive. He was sending the girls into unknown territory but this is what he had to do. He was a Time Lord and that was the burden that came with protecting the universe. The potential sacrifices he had to make. "I don't know." He said finally. "I'm not sure they'll come back. I hope so. I really do but given the amount of damage already. The entropic cascade failure." He shook his head. "If we got here sooner…"

A sickening thud sounded against the fireplace. Pieces of plaster started to fall. Ann finally turned away, holding onto the sonic as she grabbed hold of Chloe's hand. "There's no choice." She muttered. They never had one from the beginning when this whole vicious cycle of loops started. They couldn't turn back and there was no where left to run. They were backed into a corner. No other remedy in sight.

They stepped together up to the line, where they hesitated, dozens of possibilities running through their minds. What if the Doctor was wrong? What if they disappeared just like he did? What if they couldn't stop it or made it worse? What if...

"You have to hurry," he insisted, his words punctuated by another heavy crash against the wall, dust raining down on them from the force of the impact.

The girls gulped, tightening their grip on each other's hands. Ann was the first to step over the line, and Chloe quickly followed. They paused for a moment, waiting to see if they would disappear or not.

"Good, good," the Doctor encouraged. "Now the sonic."

The two girls stepped up to the desk, looking down on the device that the man outside the circle had been so concerned with. It didn't look like anything spectacular. In fact, it looked like an oversized leather watch with a digital display and far more numbers flashing across the face than any watch could possibly require.

"What is it?" Chloe asked, reaching out for it.

"Don't touch it," the Doctor quickly instructed. "It's unstable. Any disturbance could potentially trigger catastrophic failure."

"A what?" Ann asked.

"It'll blow up, destroying time and reality in its wake. Everything will be gone. The whole planet. The whole solar system. More."

Chloe shakily put her hand behind her back, afraid to even breathe near it, while Ann looked down at the metal wand in her hand. "And this will definitely fix it?"

"No, not definitely, but it's the only option we've got."

One side of the wall above the fireplace splintered, and the Doctor stood between the hole and the girls as reapers started pouring in, his arms spread wide. "Point and think! Turn it off!" he yelled back over his shoulder, before two of the monsters dove at him off the walls.

The girls huddled fearfully against the desk as they heard his screams and the cracking of bones, knowing they were next, but the silence after the Doctor death dragged out, barring the odd screech of the monsters crowding around them. Chloe opened her eyes to see a reaper throwing itself at her. She screamed and flinched away again, but the beast never reached her. She looked up again in time to see another bat try to attack them, disappearing in the same shimmer of light as the Doctor had done on the last loop.

"They can't get in," Ann said, realising at the same moment as her friend.

"The floor!" Chloe croaked out looking down around them. With every reaper that disappeared around them, the line of decay was slowly creeping closer to them. Soon, the reapers would be able to reach them again.

They quickly but nervously stood up, going against every instinct to turn away from the monsters and back to the ordinary looking desk. Ann fumbled with the device the Doctor had given her, when Chloe grabbed her arm. "But, if that thing's stopping them, if we turn it off, will they get us? If there's no more loop...?"

Ann's blood ran cold. If there were no more loops and the reapers got them, they wouldn't come back. She spoke, her voice shaking. "He said if we touch it, the whole world will die. If we don't stop it and those things get to it..." She cut off, unable to finish. She looked over at her friend, and was sure that the devastation on Chloe's face was mirrored on her own.

Chloe nodded. She had never, in her wildest dreams, considered that she would be in a position like this, where they had to save the world, but Ann was right. There was no choice. They couldn't not do everything possible, even if it meant the monsters would get them once more.

The reapers shrieked around them, the decay slowly creeping closer. "Together?" Ann asked, pointing the metal wand at the leather watch. Chloe lay her hand on top of Ann's, and they pressed down the large button.

 _Turn off. Turn off._

The sonic vibrated softly in their hands. In front of their eyes, they watched a dial spin on its own as the end started to radiate a vibrant shade of blue. In front of them the watch luminesced with colors glowing a harsh shade of red. Ann swallowed. That didn't look right. At least, not to her. Red usually meant danger. It meant to stop. Why was it glowing red? Was it now a ticking time bomb? Had they just doomed the earth through their horrid incompetence brought on by their terror?

Then, she realized. There was a pattern. The color that was blinking at her. The space between the blinks became faster. It reminded her of her camera when it was low on battery. The alert light would flash a similar red tone too. She pressed her tongue against her teeth, looking at the device in apprehension, glancing at Chloe who was staring intently at it in concentration.

"It's draining the battery. Sucking it dry." Ann managed as Chloe looked at her before seeing the line of mildew on the floor. It was only two feet away. Reapers were swarming the area and Chloe knew. What they were doing was accelerating the decay. The glow on the device was becoming fainter.

The blue light of the sonic turned off, its task seemingly complete. The energy was practically siphoned. It was only a matter of moments before the reapers would be able to swarm to the area where they were standing. Chloe grabbed Ann's hand, dragging her to the corner furthest from the reapers as they collapsed, pressing themselves against the wall.

Ann held out her phone with shaky fingers. Sweaty palms. Her heart was racing. _It's unfair._ She thought. _There was so much I wanted to do…and now…._ Her phone was still streaming the feed and she was terrified. Alone. Half a world away from her family and this would be where she would die. Where both Chloe and herself had come to die. She couldn't pretend bravery or false courage. She wasn't one to joke or laugh in the face of her own demise. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to live. But that option was long since gone.

"I'm sorry." She told Chloe as well as the viewers who could be watching the video. "Sorry I opened the door at our hotel. Sorry that we're here. If…." Too many if's. Too many things she might have chosen. Hindsight was twenty/twenty.

"I would have opened it too." Chloe tried to reassure her but her voice quavered as she focused on the phone. Her final words. Would she have a gravestone? A final epitaph? No, that wasn't important. The words she left behind would be. A form of consolation to offer everyone that would be devastated at home. She wept as she spoke. "Mum, Dad, everyone, I love you." If this was her last message, if she would be remembered, at least she wanted her parents to know how she felt. Tears were in her eyes. "I love you both so much…" How could she do this? She didn't want to die. Not again. Not forever. But she knew. No one wanted to die. The struggle to survive each time. To endure. They died hoping the next time would be their chance to end this. To get away and back home. But there was no home and no where to go. _The reapers._ She thought. _Like the grim reaper._ They had cheated death and now he was coming to collect.

Ann's throat closed in terror and in grief. She nearly felt like a passenger on a plane that was plummeting to the earth. Her cousin. She had to tell her cousin. Something. Anything. "Caitlin, tell my family I loved them. Each and everyone, just in case…." Her words seemed to fade away. _In case we don't come back. In case I never get another chance._ "I hope…." What did she hope? Maybe there was one thing worse than death at this point. One thing she realized when the Doctor and the reapers disappeared from sight as if they had never been behind the line of decay. Being eradicated from existence without anyone to remember that they lived. No one to mourn them. No mark that they did anything of worth even to those that she loved. Yes, that would be horribly worse. "I hope you won't forget…" Her voice cracked with a sob. "Please don't forget-"

A surge suddenly resonated through the area and the girls glanced up, seeing that the blinking lights on the watch they struggled to turn off was entirely gone. It was now a dead piece of machinery, sitting motionless on the table and in that moment the line of decay reached them. The reapers no longer disappeared as they surged in their direction. Both girls hunkered down as Ann's device fell from her grasp catching a full view of the reapers swarming just above.

In that last dismal second, they clung onto each other, while the monsters barreled down at the last two pieces of prey that had long been denied them in the house.

Instinctively, they both closed their eyes. Words of a childhood prayer came to Chloe's mind.

 _Now I lay me down to sleep…I pray the Lord my soul-_

It was her last thought as claws bore into them both, sundering and tearing flesh. Their screams echoed throughout the entire house as all the predators pounced upon them at the same time. No mercy. Only agony as they torn piece by piece, consumed by the monsters, enjoying their final meal.

Their shrieks of pain continued until even those cries fell silent. The reapers started to disappear one by one into a brilliant surge of light. The wound closing. The entire house then becoming still. A crumbling wasteland to the horrific violence that happened in its wake.

Only Ann's phone remained behind, recording those last few seconds before it quite suddenly, switched off, a surge of static ran through the mobile. It was powerless. Lifeless. Just like everyone else who had found themselves drawn to that manor, which appeared to now become everyone's tomb. The very gravestone that marked the last of Ann and Chloe's existence before all the bodies shimmered away into nothingness.

 **Author's Note:** Let us know what you think. We hope you enjoyed reading this little experiment. Thanks for AmberLovelyLight for her inspiration as always.

Emptyvoices & Azaadin


	2. Destiny

**Author's Note:** Our Final Chapter for now. We'll see if on other holidays if we feel inspired to add more to this story.

Ann and Chloe need not have worried. They weren't forgotten. The media drew to them millions upon millions of followers. It was a mystery and certainly a sensationalized one.

"Scotland Yard searched Gallows Hall for any sign of Ann Howard and Chloe Willis who were reported to have disappeared from their hotel room in London without a trace." The reporter's voice was solemn and chilling as he walked through the empty rooms of the manor, stepping into the living area. "Although the footage that was streaming online was initially said to be a forgery as a form of a publicity stunt, neither Ann Howard or Chloe Willis had a background or career in film making or theater. They both had established positions in their respective homes and according to their family, did not plan to travel outside of London. Merely a vacation they had planned, which appeared to be a trip ill fated for them both." The reporter paused for dramatic effect. "So, how they ended up in the south of London becomes one of the most intriguing mysteries of our time." He nodded. "Ann's cousin who was watching the feed the very night it streamed has more to say."

The surroundings suddenly changed. A girl with light brown hair, leaning back in her chair as her hands were nervously clenched looked at the camera. "You have to know Ann. She was pragmatic. Never one to believe something unless it was shown to her first. She…." Caitlin was shaking her head. "She didn't even like science fiction. She was the one that kept telling me not to jump to conclusions."

The camera focused in on the computer screen as Caitlin just clicked a button to prompt it to play.

" _Caitlin, you're the only one who would believe us but…." Ann was pausing, shaking in obvious terror. "Chloe and I, we got trapped in a house filled with monsters. We've been dying each time only to wake up and start the whole thing over again. Please, tell my parents that-" A collection of huge flying creatures flew in, starting to kill everyone in sight._

Caitlin pressed her lips together as tears came to her eyes, looking at the interviewer. "It's hard to watch…it's really, really hard but I keep the footage up. And the website. Ann asked me to remember them. She didn't want either herself or Chloe to be forgotten. I think that's what's important. That people remember who they are and what they were trying to do."

"What do you think they were trying to do?" The reporter inside the room asked.

"Save the world." Caitlin nodded with certainty. "They disappeared to save the world." She took a deep breath. "I don't know how. But only a year later, millions of viewers are trying to find out. Maybe one day they will."

It was the beginning of an explosive media franchise that started with Ann and Chloe, promoted by Caitlin that humans couldn't have predicted.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

But the Doctor could.

"Doctor, isn't there something we can do? Some way we can help them?" Donna asked, turning from the screen.

"I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head. "After they disappeared that night, they were never seen again. It became one of the greatest unsolved mysteries because of social media." He glanced down at Ann's phone in his hand. "Thousands of people around the world were watching the live video."

"No, I still don't understand," Ann interrupted him. "Why can't we go home?"

The Doctor sighed before trying to explain again. "History says you disappeared that night. That you were last seen checking into your hotel room. You can't go back, because you never went back."

"But, if we go back, then we will have gone back, so why can't we?" Chloe argued.

"Time doesn't work like that. If it's already happened, then you can't change it. And your going missing was a whopping big something that's already happened," he commented, gesturing to indicate how big 'big' was.

"No, I don't get it. I don't believe you," the blonde accused.

The Doctor nodded as he fished around his head for an allegory. "Imagine you're walking down the street and someone comes up to you and gives you a lottery ticket. That weekend, you win that jackpot with that ticket, with numbers you'd have never chosen. The next day, you're looking at a mansion you want to buy, and you happen to fall through a crack that takes you back two days. You see yourself at a newagents and buy a ticket with the winning numbers, giving it to yourself. Two days later, when your younger self disappears through the crack in time, you take her place and continue your life as a multimillionaire. Now, tell me, if any one thing in this story didn't occur, what would happen?"

Ann and Chloe frowned, trying to understand both his puzzle and his point. "None of it would happen?" Chloe asked slowly.

"Exactly," the Doctor congratulated, feeling like they were beginning to understand.

"So, if we go back, it will stop all of this from ever having happened?" she followed up hopefully.

"No," the Time Lord exclaimed. They still didn't get it. "We now are proof that you went missing. We wouldn't be here if you didn't disappear. You can't go home because you never went home."

"Shut up, spaceman, you're not helping," the ginger woman said, brushing him to one side as she crouched down before the two frightened and confused girls. "Now, I don't get most of this time travel stuff, not like him back there, but, sometimes, there's only so much we can do." Her thoughts swam back to all the people who died in Pompeii, of the one family they had managed to save. "There are things in time that need to happen." She paused and frowned. "Like a strut on a bridge. You remove one of them and the entire thing collapses."

"But…" Ann was shaking her head. Chloe had her arms folded across her chest. She didn't understand why this man was saying they couldn't return them home. After the final attack of the reapers, they found themselves back on the couch as if they had woke for the very first time. The party-goers were still there and both girls were frozen at the strains of 'Scooby Doo' that played over the speakers, expecting a swarm of reapers to attack. None of those monsters flooded in from the kitchen. At that moment, they waited in baited breaths counting the seconds wondering if any relief they allowed themselves would be far too soon.

But finally, Ann unclenched her hands, turning to Chloe. "We're alive." They had literally gone through hell to come this far. Neither one smiled or gave way to celebratory cheer. It was Ann who broke down first into tears first, followed by Chloe as they clung onto each other.

"We can go home now." Chloe managed. "We can just go home."

The Doctor and Donna found the two very traumatized girls at the door and they guided them gently away from the house that would be attributed to their nightmares. Onto a ship disguised as a phone booth. They both were too shaken, too emotionally wrought to interpret what they were seeing or to be impressed at the moment.

Donna didn't remember the time loops the girls had gone through but she had seen enough of the footage to be horrified. She recognized her own screams at her own death. It was enough to chill anyone. The Doctor felt the impressions or echoes of the different time loops or lines unraveling. He could sense the wound in time that had been opened and the affects amplified. The entropy and decay brought on by a fixed point. Two events in time connected together that caused ripples throughout history and the universe. The one he strove so hard to protect.

"We are not struts on a bridge." Ann denied. "What about our family? Our friends? They'll be missing us and they don't have to. If you take us back-"

"If I take you back, there will be damage to time." The Doctor said with a tone of finality. "Reality could die." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "This universe could die." He shook his head. "You're disappearance and your footage from that house sparked one of the greatest mysteries. Humans…." He inhaled deeply. "You lot were always so curious about time. That vortex manipulator you fixed in that room was an early prototype. It would never have been inspired if it weren't for you two. The Time Agency, eventually founded with descendants of your family forming the first Council of Eight to fill the power vacuum Time Lords left behind."

"A Time Agency?" Chloe repeated. "But you can time travel. You can't really need them or us. We can't be that important." She insisted.

The Doctor simply sighed. He was the last of the Time Lords. Eventually, even he would die and the laws of time would depend on the Time Agency to maintain. Their strict policy of change without interference and to leave an effect without any evidence as to their presence was generally upheld. As much as he spoke against vortex manipulators, where would he be if not for Jack? Would there be a universe left? No, the Time Agency had a pivotal role in the universe and the girls were a fixed part of point in history. Still, there were decisions that would have to be made.

"If the Doctor could bring you back home, he would." Donna assured them. "He would do it in a heartbeat. And you're that special. People get to learn from you and what you did." She pressed her lips together, her thoughts going back to Pompeii. How the Doctor's presence causing the volcano's eruption was the fixed point, which had to occur otherwise the planet would be the cost. She remembered how she begged him to save the one family that they become acquainted with. Who had treated them with such friendliness. She never forgot the expression the Doctor had when he looked at her, weighing the decision before deciding to make this one exception. She didn't know the Time Lord's intent for what he would do with Ann and Chloe but surely they deserved some respite now after what they had gone through.

"Doctor, the family in Pompeii…" Donna frowned briefly as the girls looked at her. "The volcano had to erupt but you saved them. Just them." She glanced at Ann and Chloe. "The smallest mercy…don't they deserve that too?"

The Doctor shook his head, his eyes fixed on eternity, before returning his gaze to the girls. He crouched down before them so he looked up at them rather than the other way around as he delivered his verdict. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. History says you disappeared. If you change that, if any of your family or friends see you and you've no longer disappeared forever, it will tear time again, worse than that Vortex Manipulator did. Time would fracture. The reapers would come through. They would destroy you, your family, you friends, your world, and I can't guarantee I'll be able to stop them this time. Not a fixed point. I won't let that happen. But, you can travel with me, if you want, see the universe, see wonders like the earth will never hold."

"See more monsters?" Ann asked accusingly. "You didn't bat an eye at those monsters. And you knew exactly what they were. Is this what you do? Do you live your life chasing monsters? We just want to go home!"

"That's not an option you have." His voice was firm. "I can't take you home. I won't risk the entire universe. If you come with me, I'll make sure you're safe. I'll keep you protected and-"

Chloe shook her head. "We were torn to pieces over and over again by those things. Do you know what's that like? It was agony. We thought we put our lives…our very last life on the line to save this blasted planet and you tell us we don't deserve to go back to our family?"

"It's not about deserving." The Doctor said. He glanced at Donna who was giving him one of her looks, reminding him of her question. _Mercy._ What kind of mercy could he offer? These girls had to be observed to make sure they wouldn't risk damage to time and who would do that better than him? He sighed, pressing his lips together in thought. _Well, there's one option._ But the girls had to agree to all the terms. There were rules he would need to give and they would need to keep them. If they committed one infraction….

"There are two choices." The Time Lord said finally. "You can stay on the TARDIS where I can keep you safe. You can join Donna and I if you want to see the real treasures of the universe and I promise you, they aren't all reapers. There's amazing things waiting to see…any time, any place past or future, I can take you…"

"But, not home." Ann folded her arms across her chest. "You brought us to that house and you won't let us return back to our home. To see our family one last time." Tears came to her eyes. "No, you offer us a life filled with more monsters. Every time, I close my eyes, I still see them. The reapers, coming at me, killing me again and again and…" She struggled to breathe.

Donna simply placed an arm around her shoulders. "Oh, sweetheart, I know. We will do the best we can by you both, right Doctor?" She raised an eyebrow at him warningly.

He grimaced. In his expansive memory, he thought of Rose. How she by unwittingly attempting to save her father, permitted reapers into reality. Her father dying was part of a paradox loop, which proved to be the trigger. A fixed point however was far more damaging. "There's the other solution. But it comes with provisions. Rules you need to live by."

"What solution?" Chloe asked tentatively. Maybe it was someway that the two girls could find a way back to their family. Some measure of hope that their cause wasn't entirely lost.

"You can live out the rest of your lives in this time." He cleared his throat. "Mind you, it won't be easy. I'll create for you new names, identities for the system, money so you can both start over but no one must know who either of you truly are."

"This time?" Ann asked.

"Yes." The Doctor nodded. "The year is 2062. There will be a few details to go over if you both decide to-"

"We are not staying on this thing." The brunette gave a gesture to the time machine around her that she saw as a terrifying vehicle that could covey her to a place where even more monsters lurked. Getting free of this, regardless of what he said or rules he attempted to instill might be the only way of getting back what was rightfully hers.

"Let me be clear." The Doctor said. "If you choose this option and if you attempt to inform anyone as to your real identities, I will know about it. You will be watched and in the moment that happens, this option will be revoked."

The two girls froze, looking at him. "You'll kill us." They whispered. They thought of the reapers. Could this alien actually do worse than what those monsters had done to them in each loop?

"No." His voice softened but he continued to look them directly in the eyes. "But my hand will be forced and I will have to keep you confined on the TARDIS so the universe isn't put at risk. If it's a choice between two lives and the universe, I will choose the universe." He saw them cringe, the fear that creased their faces. "But right now, you still have a choice. It is the one mercy I can allow. The only one I can give."

"Mercy." Ann repeated. "You stole our lives away. You call that mercy."

Chloe was silent. She was equally devastated but was at the point where she found herself too despondent to put her grief into words. Finally, she muttered, "I can't….I just can't do this…."

"You both could use some sleep." Donna said kindly. "Why don't we find you a room where you can rest? Think this over tomorrow?"

"Yes, good idea Donna." The Doctor watched his companion guide the girls down the corridor. Choices. This was new. The second time Donna had asked him to find another option, which he did. He wasn't sure it would work but given who Donna was, he knew he had to be willing to give it a go. Besides, with his temporary passengers now asleep, he had one more task to perform. A paradox left open to seal. Two girls waiting at their hotel that he had to take and place in that house so that time and the fixed point would happen like it should.

He headed back to the control room and engaged the time rotor, programming it in for the coordinates when Donna finally returned, looking drained from her experience with Ann and Chloe.

"They knock off alright?" The Doctor asked.

"They were exhausted. Hadn't slept in who knows how long." She muttered. "This will take time."

"Once I'm done here, I'll send the ship into the vortex. We'll have all the time we need." He glanced down at the controls, noting he was in the correct time and place, before grabbing his coat he draped over the jump seat.

"And there's nothing else…?" Donna started. "The best we can offer is for them to start over in the future? That the Chloe and Ann they were are simply dead?"

For some reason those words chilled him. Dead. Especially, coming from this companion. He didn't know why but he sensed something peculiar, something inevitable in the strands of time surrounding Donna where those words somehow made an alarming clarity. He couldn't put his finger on it.

"I'm bending the rules to offer that much. Time Lord law would have me take them into custody and keep them on the TARDIS. This is the kinder solution." He didn't add it was also the more human one. He closed his eyes briefly, mentally rearranging the parameters of the ship to temporarily keep the girls out of the console room, should they awaken early. He couldn't risk them stumbling out of the time machine and being seen, risking the universe and a fixed point in time. Not to mention catching sight of the past versions of themselves once he took them from their hotel to transport them to the house.

"I need your help Donna but it's going to take some trust. Regardless of what you might see." He told his companion simply.

"Alright…." She paused, wondering what she was getting into. "Spaceman?" Donna asked. "You wouldn't say that unless you were about to do something wrong." Briefly, she scowled as the two walked out of the TARDIS, with the Doctor securing the time machine behind them. His companion could only mutter, staring at the hotel in front of them, while the Doctor proceeded to sneak into the back door.

"This is why I hate Halloween." She muttered. "And haunted houses." It felt as though the girls were cursed. Glancing at the retreating back of the Doctor, who was opening the door with his sonic, she couldn't help but wonder if the Time Lord was the one carrying the curse, spreading it to others in his wake. A misery that was slow in unveiling. What if in some time that very harbinger of doom caught up with Donna too? She felt a sinking sensation at the pit of her stomach. _Soon._ A voice whispered in her mind. _Soon._

"Doctor, what are we doing here?" the strong willed woman demanded in a harsh whisper, understanding from his movements and manner that they needed to keep quiet. This was confirmed by the way he emphatically shushed her before creeping into the building.

As usual, he silently raced ahead, leaving her to have to catch up with him, grumbling all the while about Time Lords and their boundless supply of energy. She joined him just as the lift he was standing before arrived and he hurried her in, pressing a button for the second floor.

"Now, Donna, I know this is hard, but I'm going to need you to trust me and do as I say," he began explaining rapidly without preamble. "I tripped the security system when we came in. The cameras are running blind now, but not for long. We've only got another seven minutes and thirty-eight seconds before we have to be out of here. Plenty of time - I could read a book - but only if you trust me. We mustn't be seen."

"I don't understand," she answered. "What are we doing here?"

But at that moment the elevator shuddered to a stop and the doors dinged open. The Doctor rushed into the hallway, glancing either way to get his bearings, before running unerringly to the door of one of the suites. "Room service," he called out, knocking firmly but politely upon the door. He heard silence and then soft, confused discussion emanating from beyond the door.

"Why are we here?" Donna whispered in bewilderment, even as her body and wits felt alive with the adrenaline she had only ever felt at the Doctor's side. "What's in there?"

"You weren't paying attention to that video, were you?" he whispered back, referring to the documentary on the girls' disappearance. He knocked again, calling out loudly, "Room service."

"We didn't order room service," a voice announced back through the door.

"Is that... Ann?" Donna asked incredulously, grabbing the Doctor's arm.

He shushed her, shaking his arm free and waving her back. "Are you sure?" the Doctor asked the room's occupants. "I have an order here for room 202, made in the lobby on check-in. Can you confirm for me that this is not your signature, or it will still be charged to your account." He pulled out his psychic paper while listening intently to the whispered conversation behind the door.

He offered a wide friendly smile when Ann slowly opened the door, the security chain still in place. He saw her taking in his distinctly not staff attire, and though frowning, she still reached her fingers through the small gap to accept the leather wallet he extended. As her fingers closed on it, his other hand shot up, catching her hand. Touching her temple would be better, but even this was enough to generate telepathic contact. He put her waking mind to sleep, inducing a trancelike state where she was suggestible to his commands. He planted the instructions for her to close and then unlock the door for him, granting him access.

He felt terrible having to act in this manner, having to deceive them into letting him rip them from their lives, losing everything they loved, but he knew that far more would be lost if he didn't. Even so, it reminded him of the choice he'd had to make, the cruel choice he had been forced to make over and over like some obscene joke: the innocent or the universe. His hearts hardened as he cemented his resolve. He had already paid too much. He was not about to squander what he had fought so hard for so long to save. Not even for them. It was his responsibility to maintain time in accordance with his duty as a Time Lord. His right.

As soon as Ann opened the door for him, his hand reached out, catching her temple and solidifying his control. That done, he wordlessly took her hand, pulling her into the hallways and passing her wordlessly to Donna. He missed the look akin to shock and horror the she gave to see Ann's blank and docile acquiesce.

"I'm sorry, but apparently this is your signature," he said, stepping into the room and holding out the black wallet.

Chloe was standing awkwardly as though she'd jumped to her feet at his first knock. She frowned at him, nervously glancing at the door behind him where Ann had stepped away. "But... I didn't sign anything." She shook her head feeling uncomfortable. The man before her seemed perfectly genuine and friendly, but she didn't feel safe. He had simply walked into their room uninvited, which surely, the hotel staff wouldn't do... And he wasn't wearing the embroidered polo shirt of the other staff members. And the way Ann had just walked out into the hallway with him…. _Did he threaten her?_

"Ann?" she called out anxiously, stepping back from the man.

The Doctor sighed, lowering his hand and putting the psychic paper back in his coat pocket as he knew that this approach wouldn't work a second time. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry," he told her, meaning every word.

With inhuman speed, he closed the gap between them, placing his fingers on her temple before she could release her cry of fear. He put her in the same malleable trance state as Ann and led her out of the room. He grabbed Ann's phone from a table where two cups of tea were in the middle of being made, and verified Chloe had hers in her pocket.

"We've got less than four minutes, and we can't be seen," the Doctor urged his companion softly.

"Doctor, what is this? What have you done to them?" Donna glanced aghast between the two women. This felt wrong to her, so very wrong.

He shushed her quickly, listening intently. "The lift is moving. We'll have to use the stairs," he instructed.

"Doctor!" she hissed.

"Look, I'll explain everything once we get back to the TARDIS," he assured her, his expression grave.

"Doctor, this is wrong," Donna told him firmly as he led the way into a stairwell. She had seen how afraid the two girls were when she first met them, how traumatised. To hear their story, how they died over and over. She couldn't even bring herself to watch the video they'd shown the Doctor. She had turned away weeping to see the people torn apart by those creatures. After all they had suffered, they weren't even allowed to go home, but now this! As if they hadn't underwent enough, for him to have apprehended them in such a manner... Her expression hardened into righteous fury. He promised he would explain back on the TARDIS? Well, he had better have a damn good explanation!

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Donna good only watch helplessly as the past versions of Ann and Chloe were guided off the TARDIS, still in their trance states as the Doctor put the finishing touches to his telepathic programming. He touched each girl's temple to make sure the connection and his commands were firmly in place only to be broken once the girls entered the gruesome home to lay down on the couch.

Then his orders would be severed. Ann and Chloe would be jolted awake only remembering that he had come to their hotel room door under the pretense of offering room service. _Just like it should be._ He thought. Then he saw Donna's expression. It was stony. She was less than pleased. He had been consumed with making all the modifications that he had previously observed in the girls sleeping in the two bedrooms in another part of his TARDIS. Although he often said he had all the time he needed while in a time machine, sustaining a causality paradox with past and future versions of individuals wasn't ideal. At least he had foresight to mentally rearrange the ship to prevent a calamitous run in with their past and future selves. He cringed remembering what happened when Rose physically interacted with her younger self as a baby. No. This paradox with a fixed point was delicate enough and he needed to work with all speed. He could explain the situation to Donna once he was certain he had finished the final details.

It took all of Donna's restraint not to take Ann and Chloe's arms and pull them back away from that house they shuffled towards in a zombie like state. Tears were in her eyes. She hadn't felt this way since Pompeii when she saw that family huddled in their home, holding onto each other, praying for a rescue they thought might never come. The Doctor was going to abandon them there but Donna begged. _'Just one.'_ She told him. _'Not everyone. But just save one.'_

The intense expression he gave her and the myriad of emotions shifting through those ancient eyes before he exhaled deeply and re-engaged the dematerializer setting them back down into Pompeii. He made direct eye contact to the patriarch of that family seeming to cement his existence to this very soul. Pompeii was a fixed point just like the girl's disappearance was. Did it have to be so wretched on them?

"You said you would explain?" Donna's tone was low. She had watched the girls pass the gate. The TARDIS wouldn't get to close to the time distortions so in a brief explanation, the Doctor said using hypnosis to compel the girls inside was the only way to ensure everyone's safety.

"Yes, right." The Doctor nodded, turning to head back into the console room, making sure his companion followed him inside. "We've gone on a bit on this Donna. A fixed point in the universe. It can never be broken." His voice was firm. "Also a paradox." He started to pilot the ship back into the vortex. "The girls are part of that fixed point and one again, so are we. I had to get their earlier selves back into position-"

"So you just had to go and kidnap them?" Donna challenged. "Without a word! Knock them out and take them over. They have no choice. Is that how it is?"

The Time Lord turned to look at Donna. A darkened expression fluttered across his face. He placed his hands in his pockets and clenched his jaw. "To save the universe, yes. Their lives." He paused, gazing at a cluster of stars represented on the map before him. "Their suffering or reality coming apart. It's up to me now. Saving the lives of trillions. Because, I tell you, their deaths would be bad."

"And now what's left there for them? A future they don't know? Family they won't see again? That the solution, Spaceman?"

"It's not ideal." The ancient alien muttered. "To be fair, this was your solution, not mine."

"My solution?" Donna put her hands on her hips, feeling her temper fully come to the surface.

"Yes, your solution because I don't take these risks." He emphasized. "Not with fixed points. I'm bending the rules in letting them leave the TARDIS. If my people were here…." His voice trailed. "If there wasn't a Time War…." He shook his head. Oh, it would be a far different conversation. The CIA (Celestial Intervention Agency), Gallifrey's form of law enforcement, would never approve of a reckless decision of letting a fix point be displaced even fifty years into the future. It became a Time Lord's responsibility to oversee their jurisdiction and take all measures that they kept from interfering the time line lest the reapers come back again.

But no, he had to be different. He had spent so much time around humans and Donna, his best friend, he knew how much she cared for Ann and Chloe. She begged for this chance. Made him promise they would have a chance at a life free from anymore monsters. His voice softened. "Donna, I'm telling you. I'm doing what I can for them. So they can have some freedom. You were the one who helped me to see that there was another option. I know this isn't pretty." The weight of the universe pressed upon him and he gave her a haunted gaze filled with every tragedy, every loss he was forced to endure. "But…." He met his companion's gaze directly. "I saw all the footage. Ann and Chloe, in the end, chose to save the universe at the cost of their own lives." He gave a bitter smile. "They kept saying they didn't want to be forgotten. How ironic that it was their need to be remembered that made them a fixed point." The Doctor swallowed. He was grief stricken too about having to torment two innocent girls. He only hoped in some meager way to make it up to them when settling them in their future accommodations. "When it came down to it…they did the human race proud." His tone was measured. "And now the lot of you will never forget them."

Donna was only partially calmed. She remembered watching the girls walk robotically into the mist covered house. She didn't like it but she remembered how she struggled to warn people about Pompeii. How no one took her seriously. A horrible decision had to be made there. Either Pompeii with the neighboring towns would be decimated by the volcano eruption or Earth would be destroyed. Both the Doctor and Donna thought they would die in that moment, sacrificing their lives so Earth could live. Ann and Chloe after being killed multiple times, made the very same decision so the universe could survive.

"Alright, Spaceman." She would relent but only halfway. "But I want a deal. Nothing someone like you can't handle."

"And what is that? The Doctor braced himself, preparing for some outlandish request.

"Every couple weeks if we can manage it, I want to see them. Have a cuppa tea. See how they are settling in. A familiar face will help them. Especially a human one."

The Time Lord chuckled and nodded. He was planning to do some discreet observations anyway. Check in as needed. Not just on Ann and Chloe but on Caitlin. Ann's very curious cousin who received and was going through every single piece of media footage from the girls. Fortunately, the Doctor had the foresight to insert a very delicate piece of viral code that obscured his and Donna's face. Only their voices were captured on the feed. Still, when he reached out through his senses, he had the feeling that it wouldn't be the last time he ran into Caitlin.

"A cuppa tea sounds lovely. One of my favorite years. No reason to see how they are holding up from time to time." He could easily agree to this request. It was by far one of the simplest Donna had asked for. "We probably should check in on Ann and Chloe." He headed out to the corridor. "The TARDIS integrated new identities and credit transfers for the timeline. We can have a little talk and see if they're ready to leave." He nodded. "Go over a few details. The rules."

"Not going to require them to be locked away in a convent, right Spaceman?"

"Convent?" The Doctor asked blankly and then briefly rolled his eyes at the reference. _Humans._ "No. No convents. Think of it as witness protection."

He proceeded to pace quickly down the hallway with Donna following in slow pursuit, while muttering darkly. "Witness protection, yeah. That just sounds so much better."

Xxxxxxxxxxxx

The Doctor slid two folder files across the table to the displaced women. "These are all your ID and documents, including backstories, that you should familiarise yourselves with, and an outline of events and general knowledge that you should know as a resident of this time period," he explained. "You'll need to do your own research to supplement what I've given you." He left a pause to allow them to comment or question him, but they simply accepted the files silently, too despondent to know how to react. This was the option they'd chosen, but the reality of their new lives, in exile from their home and time and family, was still a heavy burden to reconcile.

The Doctor cleared his throat and awkwardly continued his instruction. "There is enough money in your accounts for you to live comfortable quiet lives, and the deed is in both your names." He was referring to the title deed for their new London flat whose kitchen they now sat in.

"You didn't even ask," Ann piped up, a hollow note to her voice.

"I know," he said as consolingly as possible. "I've given each of you dual citizenship in your own countries and here, through your parents. You grew up in America and Australia-" He nodded at each in turn. "-and moved here together. Being foreigners will help when you're lacking in general knowledge and modern colloquialisms. And you can always move wherever you want."

Chloe shook her head, trying to fight back tears, not denying his words, but the whole situation. When they'd woken up a few hours ago in a generic hotel style bedroom, she had hoped that it had all been dome horrible dream, but as soon as they'd stepped into the featureless metallic hallway, those hopes has been crushed. Even the 'treat' he gave them, seeing the planet from above, something they would never have otherwise seen, was not enough to dispel the pain and grief they felt at that moment. In fact, it only served as proof of the Doctor's power to have turned their lives upside down.

She jumped slightly at the mug of tea that was suddenly set before her, not having noticed Donna step away from the table and pottering around her new, fully stocked kitchen.

"I know it's hard," the kind woman said, sitting down beside her and taking her hand after having served the rest of the cups of tea she had made. "I know it's terrible. But I know you two will be alright. You're both so strong and kind and good. I know this reward isn't as good as going home, and it never will be, but you both survived, survived so much, and now you can see the world that you saved every day."

"The world you're continuing to save," the Doctor added, subtly reminding them why they were here, that they had to remain hidden.

"And we're not just going to leave you," Donna continued, shooting the Doctor a sharp look, which he squirmed appropriately under. "We'll come back and visit all the time, see how you're doing," she promised.

"Both of you?" Ann asked. She tried to keep her voice even, but just enough trepidation leaked though to convey her resentment of the Time Lord who had irrevocably upended their lives.

He took his elbows from the table and leaned lazily back in his chair, trying to give them a little more room from him.

"No, just me," Donna agreed, shooting the Doctor another look warning him not to argue with her.

The ancient man sighed. It was time he took his leave. He fishing in his pocket for one last gift, then held out a tiny coin-like medallion on a chain to each of them. "Keep these with you. Don't take them off," he instructed gently. "They're emergency beacons. Just hold them, front and back, between your fingers and squeeze them hard, and we'll come immediately. Call us for anything. If you want company and a cuppa. If you're getting mugged on a street. If you ever need us, just call and we'll be there." He held them out. "Here, put them on," he offered.

They reluctantly took the chains. They looked like simple plain necklaces. Chloe inspected hers for a moment. It had been stylishly engraved with a 'C', a leaf pattern around the edges. The clasp seemed simple enough, looking like a magnet held the necklace together. Wordlessly she clipped it into place. She knew she should thank him from the gift - it looked expensive - but she just couldn't bring any words to mind to thank the alien. She didn't feel thankful to him at all.

The Doctor watched with silent satisfaction as they clipped the medallions into place. He didn't like tricking them in such a way, but as fixed points, they needed to be monitored to ensure the stability of time. "They won't tarnish or rust, so you don't need to take them off," he told them, omitting the fact that they wouldn't be able to remove them. "Keep them with you all the time, so you always have them in an emergency."

"Never mind those," Donna added. "You can always call me if you want to talk." She had earlier scribbled her number down for them on a notepad that had been left for them on the kitchen bench and stuck the paper to the fridge.

The Doctor glanced at Donna and minutely jerked his head towards the door, telling her it was time to go. They simply needed time. Humans were nothing if not adaptable.

Xxxxxxxxxx

There were fast moving cars that were solar powered, seeming to hover only slightly off the ground. They came equipped with auto-pilot so the driver couldn't make a mistake and mow people down by hitting the wrong pedal.

At least the vehicles weren't flying through the air in some horrid, futuristic ideal of an aerial freeway. Ann could only fathom the amount of accidents and fatalities that would cause. She had seen 'Back to the Future' on Netflix and shuddered at the thought. Individuals had a difficult time driving on the ground much less pretending to be pilots and taking a car as an inflight projectile.

Computer chips defined the world. Although, they weren't embedded into people's skins, everyone had a singular identification card with their identity in it, encrypted with a passcode confirmed by a simple retina scan. The Doctor had taken the precaution to alter theirs slightly so no mistake would be made.

"If you follow your aliases, everything should be fine." He assured them. "Donna will be checking in on you every two weeks unless there's an emergency. We'll come to you straight away."

Ann and Chloe swore to themselves there would be no emergency to necessitate his presence.

But life was a lonely one. In their modern flat as they adjusted to gadgets, they didn't quite understand, there seemed to be a fundamental barrier between themselves and their neighbors. What would they speak about? Home was a painful subject. The present a touchy one as well since they were forced to lie. It was a hard lesson to learn when they could never truly be themselves.

The Doctor had allowed them to keep their first names so they would respond easily when called but changed their last. Since they didn't work or weren't required to work, they took the time to travel. Ann saw Australia although Chloe said it wasn't anything like she remembered. It was quite the same when they took to visiting Portland. Buildings had dramatically changed and the landmarks Ann once loved to visit were altered beyond recognition. Both decided to return to London. Memories of a home they couldn't go back to were far too prevalent. A very depressing anecdote. It was then, they were sadly reminded of a song from John Lennon, a classic they heard playing on the media sounwave, which often filled them with hungering nostalgia.

' _There are places I remember, all my life_

 _though some have changed,_

 _some forever, not for better_

 _some have gone and some remain._

 _All those places have their moments,_

 _Of lovers and friends, I still can recall,_

 _Some are dead and some are living,_

 _In my life, I loved them all._

xxxxxxxxxx

When they slept, they found no relief from the nightmares that often had each girl waking up in turn. Those dreadful nocturnes when they returned back to that horrific house waiting to die again in agonizing pain wondering if this would be the very last time. Through that experience, they developed insomnia. Oh, they were exhausted but far too frightened to fall asleep.

Donna visited regularly as promised. She was concerned about both girls well-being and she could see the signs of fatigue lingering up them while they drank their tea. It was clear with the apparent shadows just underneath their eyes, the strain in their expression and the red head struggled to think of a method that could be conducive in helping them recover.

"Nightmares?" She asked. The girls simply frowned. Ann would prop her chin on the table, her eye lids fluttering. It took everything in her to stay awake. To escape the monsters from her nightmares. Chloe drank so much tea her stomach ached started to ache. She feared an ulcer was actively developing from the stress in combination with the tannic acid from the tea.

Donna implored the Doctor for help.

"I would, Donna." He said quietly. "But I don't think I'll be a welcome sight."

"They haven't slept in days." The redhead pronounced adamantly. "There must be something we can do." She gazed fiercely at the Doctor. "Something non-invasive."

He sighed. "I have portable devices I can install about their beds that would suppress their dreams but it's not a long term solution."

"So what is the long term solution?"

"Telepathy for one. It's a therapeutic device I've seen work before in helping with traumatic events." He paused. "That is, if they are both compatible." He knew Ann was but he didn't have the chance to access Chloe's mind.

"Oh c'mon Spaceman, they are not going to welcome that. Hardly trust you as it is."

"Exactly my point." The Time Lord agreed. "The neural dampeners are the alternate solution. But…"

"But what?"

"They will only work for a matter of weeks. We'll have to hope they'll get into a regular sleep pattern before the neural dampeners are rendered useless."

So they were installed by the girls consent. For that time, it was a blessing not to be caught up in dreams of mass killing but on the sake token, there good dreams were stripped from them too. Dreams of home. Their family. Being back with the people they loved. Instead, there was the nothing. Just the lingering unconsciousness for eight hours to wake up to another day pretending to be people they weren't. The names they had to pretend no longer existed.

Both Ann and Chloe broke down several times. They couldn't stand this. A life built on lies. Who could live this way?

It was only then, that Ann had visited a bookstore and was astounded to see a vibrant three-dimensional holographic feed advertising the newest book by Caitlin Howard.

 _The media and film sensation of the early 21_ _st_ _century brought to life as no one has ever seen it before. Caitlin Howard describes her search for Ann and Chloe that took her to England for clues about her disappearance. Find out secrets you never knew about the girls that disappeared one Halloween._

The screen flashed and in front of them was clearly the man who dressed up as Dracula. _'They may have disappeared fifty years ago but I saw them in that house last Halloween. Clearly weren't themselves. Dressed a little strangely. Thought it was a costume. Whoever those girls were, they disappeared from one time period and ended up in another.'_

"He remembered us." Chloe whispered, running a hand through her hair. They were forced to change the color. Chloe's hair was now a shade of auburn while Ann's was well year black. A simple alteration on the TARDIS changed their eye color.

"Yeah…." Ann felt hope stir inside of her as she looked at the advertisement.

 _Caitlin Howard, best selling author and producer now lives in Nightingale Assisted Living Park will be signing autographs and answering fan questions this Thursday._

"That's tomorrow." Ann suddenly smiled, feeling a bit of the loneliness drain away from her. "That's…." She turned to Chloe. "I need to see her."

Chloe chewed her lip nervously. "But Ann, the rules…he said to be discreet." She wasn't sure if this qualified. Perhaps Caitlin could be an exception and would be one to keep their identify to herself.

"But she's my cousin." Ann insisted. "And," the girl gestured at the screen. "In a rest home. Really, who is she going to tell? I know Caitlin can keep a secret. Besides…" Ann grimaced. "Probably doesn't have long left." She couldn't imagine the harm in just saying a simple good-bye to the very last family member she had.

Chloe nodded. "If we're quick, yeah. Besides, it might just serve to inspire her further knowing she was right."

Ann took careful note of the address and time, feeling for the first time since they had been left in this alien timeline, a thrill of hope. Her family. The one last member. At least, she could have some closure to say some form of good-bye.

They arrived early the next day, and were surprised at the crowd that had gathered at the nursing home. While the numbers didn't roll in as if for J.K. Rowlings, it was obvious the crowd included far more than just your average conspiracy enthusiasts. Ann wore a faint sad yet fond smile to see how well her cousin had done.

"Oh, there's a whole chapter on the year I took drama in school in here," Chloe said, horrified, as she flicked through the book. That class was one she had always tried to forget. Her at the time crush had been in the class, and she'd managed to humiliate herself in front of him before the year's end. That one year had been used as proof of her acting ability debunking their video as fraudulent. Unfortunately, Ann's cousin Caitlin had done a lot of research to counter those claims, including sourcing her academic transcripts and interviewing old classmates and teachers. Chloe couldn't decide whether she should feel encouraged by Caitlin's defence or mortified by so many of her secrets being on display. In any case, she was genuinely astonished at the sheer amount of information of their lives the book contained

Ann was simply holding her book, too anxious to read as she anticipated seeing her last living link to the past. She had barely recognised her cousin from the online images she'd found. It wasn't until she found a happy snap of Caitlin laughing, as opposed to the posed publicity shots, that she had finally recognised her as the young woman she once knew, something about the way her eyes crinkled as she smiled. That had been the moment that had driven the hard reality into her, that the lives they once knew truly were lost.

They with the crowd looked up as a (publicist, manager, liaison, organising person... whatever they're called) stood up and gave instructions to the assembly. The dinning room had been set up for a short public interview using prearranged questions from an internet poll, and then Caitlin would sign autographs, one signature per guest. After sharing a nervous glance, Ann and Chloe quickly joined the queue, having already ensured they were close to the entrance.

They found themselves in the third from the front row, listening to the aged but astute author's soft voice as she answered questions, countered criticisms, and explained the intricacies of the girls last known adventure. Many years before, she had found and raised the money to buy the decrepit house from the video, studying it, trying to reconcile it with what she'd seen. It wasn't until the police had contacted her, informing her that the house had been broken into and damaged by a group of partygoers, that the final piece of the puzzle had fallen into place for her. She met a few of those arrested, as their families settled the damages to avoid court, and recognised them from the video she had spent so many years studying.

"He had spoken so many times of a wound in time," she explained, speaking of the Doctor. "And this must have been what brought them to the future. This proves that time travel is possible, and in both directions, since footage from the future was seen in the past." She showed a few slides on a large screen, specially brought in for the day, comparing images of party guests with photos of people said to have been present at that part. "Science cannot satisfactorily explain this phenomena yet, but I have included everything I could learn in my book, and all of my assets are being channeled towards researching the possibility and implications of time travel."

The question and answer segment proceeded after a short intermission. Ann looked at her cousin's publicist thinking of the remnants of her own past PR position before they were taken out of their own timeline. Although, they were aware of the importance the Doctor signified of their disappearance, Ann and Chloe had been taken aback by the sheer amount of merchandising. It was reminiscent of Harry Potter and that phenomenon in their prior timeline. Not only were their lives described with detailed precision, culminating in the events of that night but their names were detailed on t-shirts, candy and pens. There were simulations of the 'Reaper Night' with holographic images of Ann and Chloe.

But an audience wanted to more thoroughly engage with the mystery past a few forms of cheap thrills, both girls now knew what had caused the party goers to attend.

 _It was us._ Ann thought. _We were what they were looking for._ It was only likely they had not garnered more recognition from their appearance since it was a Halloween party and everyone was in costume. Ann and Chloe attended involuntarily as themselves. She gave a brief shudder as she refocused her attention on her cousin with insurmountable pride. How often she had teased her for one ridiculous theory or another and look at how far she had come.

One reader was asking Caitlin about which adaptation to the screen she enjoyed more. There were the films, a mini series early on that gave an attempt at being more thorough and a television show.

"I don't have an ongoing involvement with the television show." Caitlin said dryly. "I'll simply say they took a lot of dramatic license in the development of Ann and Chloe's relationships to the Doctor and his associates."

Chloe cringed. The Doctor had used some form of virus to distort the video feed that had played back in the past so he couldn't be recognized. Only his voice was made evident and the writers took the newest up and coming attractive male star to feature as him. It was throughout the entire terrible night, which episodes played back in gory detail that her on screen counterpart found herself torn in more ways than just physical as they harbored a romantic attraction they weren't sure would survive.

It was ridiculous and a tad insulting. Extra salt in an already perpetuating wound but Ann switched the screen off, telling her it wasn't really them. But the reassurance was a hollow one at the time. Chloe had simply swallowed before finally shaking her head. "I'm getting tired of the telly anyway." She refocused her attention to Caitlin who finally said, that according to her, she thought the mini series was the closest adaptation. Privately, both girls were relieved. Neither one wanted to be remembered for anything sordid. Ann thought of the time travel watch that was sitting on the table, they were forced to fix with the sonic screwdriver. Then she thought of this agency far in the future where their disappearance was fundamental in its very foundation. _What will they think of us then?_ Remembering how the Doctor said it was sometime in the 49th century. She knew how easily history could be twisted. _Will they know us for who we were or what media superimposed on us?_ She took a deep breath. The allotted time for questions was coming to an end and Caitlin stepped away as her publicist gave a short announcement.

"Please have your books open to the designated page. One autograph per person. The bar is open in the lobby should any of you want cocktails."

Drinks were the last thing on Ann's mind. She had been anticipating this, imagining this since yesterday, what her reunion with family might be like. Of course, she had to be discreet but Caitlin would understand. She believed they both were alive and had travelled in time. When the assistants came to each person in the line to designate how they wanted the autograph to appear, Ann briefly paused before deciding. "To Annie." She said. Caitlin had only called her that in person. While the two girls approached the signing table, Caitlin, wearing a pair of reading glasses, smiled briefly at what she was designated to write.

"Annie." Caitlin said and Ann's breath caught in her throat. Tears came to her eyes. It was the very same tone as though no time had passed at all. Certainly not fifty years. She started to write. "That's a wonderful name. I used to call my cousin that when…" It was then the author paused to glance up from the task, looking first at Ann and then at Chloe. In this proximity, despite the change to their hair color, she could see the uncanny resemblance. The older woman's eyes widened as she glanced at the next piece of paper for the book she was to sign after Ann's. "Chloe." She whispered and her hands trembled.

Ann took another step forward. "Caty," She started with her cousin's nickname, speaking faintly. "It's us." Her voice was soft. She didn't feel the vibration going through the necklace the Doctor asked them to wear. "We wanted to say…." Her voice trailed. "I'm sorry, Caty." She managed. "I'm sorry for everything. It's…." She paused as Caitlin stood up to round the table to the girls while the publicist standing behind was bewildered by the exchange.

Suddenly there was a distant scream down the hallway, which held the initial reading. The only person in there had been part of the catering service who was cleaning up after the event. A horrifying sound of flesh tearing and bones snapping, which to Ann and Chloe were all too familiar. They saw part of the creature jamming through the narrow hallway, its wings ravaging the plaster.

Ann and Chloe could only stare in horror at this all too familiar sight. A reaper re-emerging back into this world. "Oh, God." Ann's throat was dry with shock as Chloe stared at the sight from her nightmares. "Not again." She muttered. "Not…"

"Come on!" Ann broke out of her shocked paralysis, grabbing Caitlin and Chloe's hand as they ran for a nearby corridor. Surrounding them, she could hear the buzzing of the fire alarm while an automated voice called for an orderly evacuation to which no one was heeding.

Chloe glanced over her shoulder. Despite the various crowds fleeing for the door, the reaper didn't seem to be specifically reveling in chasing that food source. It tore through people that by happenstance stood or were running between it and the three of them, which brought together a horrifying solution. _It's hunting us._ Chloe thought frantically. _We brought it here._ She immediately felt for the necklace she was wearing and pressed both sides as the Doctor indicated. The necklace didn't respond this time, lying limp in her hand. The Doctor had abandoned them. They were all alone with the monster.

"It's not working!" Chloe cried out and Ann inhaled deeply. She attempted to use hers with only the same problem arising. Unique items as they were when the Doctor gave it to them, now they were just meaningless pieces of jewelry. She dropped the necklace, focusing on their primary concern. Their survival. Now for all three since Caitlin had joined their group. Given her age, she had difficulty moving very fast and it hampered their efforts.

"Sorry," Caitlin winced. "My hip. Replacement surgery. The new modular plastic. Doesn't feel the same."

"The basement." Ann protested. "Can you make it to the basement? Maybe it will lose interest, return from where its come from but we need a fortified place to stay."

"Yes, down the hallway, next to the kitchen. Only a few feet away."

Between the two, they helped guide Caitlin down the corridor to the basement she suggested, bolting the door behind them, while shoving an old, deteriorating bookshelf in front as additional protection.

Both received a handful of splinters in their hands as a reward for their efforts but the job was successful and they backtracked downstairs, hiding in the corner behind several rows of discarded furniture. Ann could hear Chloe muttering. A prayer. Yes, they could need any intercession they might find but she reached out an squeezed Chloe's hand. "We'll just stay here. It'll be okay."

"The people. All those people up there. It killed them." Chloe could still smell the blood, see the ripped carcasses. The gore. "It's our fault, isn't it?" Tears came to her eyes. "We shouldn't have come. " She glanced at Caitlin. "I'm so, so sorry."

The older woman tried to smile. "It was an accident. You didn't know. Least of all me. But you two…." Caitlin could only stare at them. Her cousin hadn't aged a day since she had last seen her. Chloe also appeared the same age too. All those books she had written, she had been right. Time travel. They were taken to the future.

"It's good to see you Ann, despite the circumstances. I thought…" Caitlin shook her head, her pulse racing. She squeezed her fists tightly to still her tremors. "When you were gone, my family didn't listen to me. They thought you were dead or worse, caught into a human trafficking ring."

"They never tried to find me?" Ann closed her eyes. She knew ascertaining their location would be impossible. Displaced and out of time.

"Oh, Annie, of course they did. Hired private investigators for you and Chloe. They worked your cases for months. No leads. When they gave up, I didn't. I kept looking all these years." Caitlin nodded. "I knew you were both alive so I wouldn't give up until-"

Ann threw her arms around her cousin. "Thank you." Tears came to her eyes. "I'm proud of you. What you've done. We never thought of ourselves as famous." Her tone was a morbid one.

"If we make it out of here alive…"

"No." Chloe was adamant. "We made a terrible exception to see you, thinking just one person wouldn't make a difference. That you could just keep the secret and it wouldn't matter. But it did. No one else can know about us."

They heard the loud sounds of banging in the kitchen. The thing was just outside the basement door.

"Oh God." Chloe pressed her face into her hands and started rocking back on her heels in slow momentum, while Caitlin placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"No way to destroy it, is there?"

Ann just mutely shook her head. "Time creatures. They repair the wounds in time. Until the wound in repaired…"

Chloe looked at Ann uneasily. "Are we the wound?"

"Who else could it be?"

Caitlin seemed to straighten, a sudden thought emerging to the forefront of her mind, such as an epiphany and at that moment she knew. "You're not the wound." Her voice was a whisper. "Not now. Your contact with me created the tear in time. I'm the one linked to that rift." She bit her lip. "You two said you needed to remain gone. Disappeared. Your contact with me made me into the anchor so the reaper can exist here. Now it's after me."

Ann stared at her shocked. Caitlin had really been studying that footage and doing her homework all these years when they were absent. When Caitlin defended them against those whom simply thought they were perpetrating a media hoax.

"But we need to seal it so no one else dies." Ann shook her head. "No more deaths. I just can't…"

"Annie," Caitlin said softly. "It's me. I'm the one who has to die."

"What?" Ann gasped. "No. There must be another way!"

"I wish there was but, Annie. I have no regrets. Now that I've seen you two, even far less to count."

"Caitlin, please…" Anne started, finding herself sink to her knees. She didn't know how she could go through this again and the burden was on her. It was entirely her fault.

"This can't be the only option." Chloe was desperate. She saw the panic on Ann's face and knew she was blaming herself but if she was in her shoes, if it was her family, she couldn't say she might very well do the same. She would have given anything to see her own family again. Her parents, her brother and sister who were now passed away. "Please, you can't just give up. We can figure this out. Like before…" She struggled to press the button again on her necklace. Why wasn't it working?

"Is that what you did? Give up? I always knew you were trying to save the world." Caitlin mused. "Now I get that very same chance. Just like you did."

"But…. Chloe struggled to speak. "You won't come back. There's no time loops. When you do this…." She shook her head.

"That will be it." Caitlin nodded. "I know." They heard the room shudder around them. "We don't have much time."

Ann's hands were shaking. "I can't! I just can't let you do this! I can't watch it again!" Caitlin tried to speak words of consolation but Ann couldn't listen anymore. Hadn't she sacrificed enough already? Hadn't she given up almost everyone she ever met? Everyone she ever loved? No. Just this once, the world would not take her cousin from her too.

She watched Caitlin turn, to limp to the door. "No!" Ann shrieked and she ran forward, wrapping her arms around Caitlin to keep her in place. In their temporary refuge of safety. Away from the reaper that was bent on threatening them. "I won't let you!"

"Annie, you have to let go." Caitlin told her, gently but firmly. "I have to go. There is no other way. You know what will happen if I don't!"

"I can't….please, just stay. Stay with us. I can't do this. Can't see this." Her thoughts were erratic. "I'll go instead. It was my fault. Please just-"

Caitlin looked to Ann's friend, meeting her friend staring at her squarely. A flicker of understanding darted across the blonde's eyes. Despite Chloe's repugnance at this revelation, the girl knew what had to be done.

However much she disdained the ordeal ahead. She flashed back to when Ann and herself were looking at the Vortex Manipulator, balancing the sonic screwdriver in their sweaty palms. Concentrating with all their minds. Their thoughts. _Turn off. Turn off._

"Chloe." Caitlin said. Her voice a plea.

A smash against the door. Splinters flew to the floor. The door wouldn't last that longer.

"Chloe, please." Caitlin pleaded with her, voice trembling. "Help me." The older woman managed. She couldn't pry off Ann's fingers on her own and at that moment, Chloe's intervention became an absolute necessity.

Chloe froze momentarily. What could she do? But the reaper was coming. The choice was a horrible one but she was running out of time and she remembered, flashing back, recalling what they had seen in Caitlin's interview. How she saw the footage and vehemently took their side in the argument. That it wasn't a media hoax or a dramatic portrayal they had tried to purport on the unsuspecting public.

The memories of those events played vividly through her mind and she shuddered at thought of being torn part, consumed alive over and over again. A hideous recollection of events they never asked to be a part of and now for the simple desire to see one last family member, they were faced with an increasingly morbid task. The request to stand aside and pay witness to one more atrocity. One more death committed by this reaper they fought so hard to defeat.

Chloe thought desperately. She closed her eyes. How could she do this? But even if Ann and Chloe gave their lives, it would still persist to go after Caitlin. It would all be for nothing.

She felt stuck in place, staring at Caitlin, struggling with the options only to realise that there was just this one choice. One task that she was limited to. The basement door splintered and finally broke open. The reaper heading directly towards them.

"Annie, please let go!" Caitlin cried out. "Chloe!"

It was almost upon Caitlin, when Chloe with all the strength she could muster, wrapped her arms around the other girl's waist, tackling her to the ground, away from Caitlin. They hit the floor hard but the rest of the events occurred in still frame.

Ann screaming in protest, crying out Caitlin's name. Chloe lying in a partial daze on the floor due to the impact while Ann attempted to get to her feet. Caitlin already paced the small gap in space to the reaper. To her death. The terrible sounds of tearing flesh, cracking of bone and then, the reaper itself starting to fade through a vivid crack in existence from which it came.

Ann found herself slumping away, tears streaming down her face as she gasped, making a choking sound on the bile that crept into her throat. She reached out to take Caitlin's hand only to see time had reorganized itself around them. Their surroundings fading away as though one sordid dream. The reaper now was gone. They were in Caitlin's bedroom of her allotted rooms but Chloe and Ann started to hope it was a singular, distorted nightmare. Ann almost thought Caitlin was asleep but when she touched her hand, she realized immediately that this wasn't the case. The skin was cold. Almost icy. They were touching a corpse. Caitlin was really dead.

"She's gone." Ann gasped. "She's just…" She turned away as Chloe pressed her lips together, feeling tears well up in her eyes. _God forgive me._ She thought as she glanced at Ann. "I'm sorry. I had to. I just…"

Ann could only nod, shaking her head, not trusting her trembling voice. She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself but she was shivering violently. "I…."

Screams sounded down the hall. The people who had been in the reaper's unfortunate path were now corpses in the same position where the reaper first emerged. Ann and Chloe were silent, the guilt horrendous at what they had just done. They felt it eating away at their very souls. All those lives….how many had just died?

"My fault." Ann whispered. "I said we should go. That it wouldn't matter. The rule. I couldn't follow the rule. Chloe, I'm….." She didn't know how to apologize. Her sorrow didn't seem to be enough as an offering but Chloe, nodded briefly. Understanding. Who would understand better than she did? The two joined hands as Ann turned back to Caitlin's body.

"I wanted it to be harmless. That seeing Caitlin….I'm sorry." Tears came down her face. "If I could take it back…" _Take it back._ If she could take everything back, they would never be here in the first place. She would be back home in Oregon, working at her job, living the life she was meant to. Chloe would be in Sydney finishing her Bachelors Degree. But that had been stolen from them and now five deaths were subsequently placed on their conscience, never to be taken away.

For several minutes, they stared at the body of Caitlin Howard, before Ann closed her eyes. They needed to think, to repent, likely even to pray and certainly, there was nothing left for them here. They had done far more damage than good they had originally thought to be their intent.

Delicately, she pulled up the bed sheet covering Caitlin Howard's face, a tear running down her cheek. It was her final sign of honor and respect. Then, she reached down and kissed her forehead, swallowing hard.

"I'm sorry." Ann whispered before turning, steeling herself to walk out of the hospital corridor as Chloe gave Caitlin's hand a final squeeze. Her goodbye. They had to go, before any other harm was committed. Before anyone else lost their lives from their mere presence.

But just as they were exiting the door, someone stepped directly in front of them blocking their path. The Doctor. But this time, his expression was dark and foreboding as he examined both girls that had seriously flaunted the rules he had given them. The mercy he extended with the chance to live freely on their own.

He should have known better but Donna had been persistent and he allowed it despite his better judgment. _Humans. Destructive by their own nature._ He stared down at them icily, his eyes ancient, locked directly onto theirs, unrelenting.

"Going somewhere?" He asked coldly, glancing at the body of Caitlin. Of course, he had seen the other bodies in the senior living facility. He struggled like mad to land the TARDIS in the time stream but the time machine prevented a successful dematerialization with the ongoing severe temporal disturbance.

"I….we….well, we…." Chloe started to stammer.

"This was an accident." Ann defended weakly. "It really was. We never thought….it was a mistake. I swear, it was-"

"Oh, I believe that." The Doctor nodded. "Probably you think the only mistake you made was getting caught."

"No!" Chloe exclaimed, horrified. "That's not it at all. We never thought…never intended…." She shook her head wildly.

"We're sorry." Ann said to him desperately. "We're both really sorry."

"Sorry." The Doctor replied. The word was said almost mockingly. This time Donna wasn't here to caution him. To speak up for the two little humans that cowered in front of him. His best friend didn't remember he existed. Everyone he knew and cared about was gone. He was alone and the decision of what to do with these girls who squanders his chance rested squarely with him.

"Yes, sorry because we will never let it happen again."

"That's right. Neither of you will." The Doctor took another step towards them from the outside corridor just inside Caitlin's room. "I'll make sure of it." One more step. His thoughts drifted on a familiar phrase. A guiding principle throughout this regeneration.

 _No second chances. I'm that kind of man._

Stepping all the way inside, the door closed swiftly behind them, trapping the occupants inside there with him.

Ten minutes later when a staff member opened the door to check on the patient, they found only Caitlin Howard dead on her bed. The rest of the room was empty.

 **Author's Note:** A joint venture in part from myself and Azaadin primarily for Halloween as a short story. Rather a little fun to do as well as a school assignment to learn the in's and out's of transmedia. (Essentially big franchises that extend from the movies or television shows to books or the internet) At any rate, we are working on our other works but I hope you have a little enjoyment reading this. Thank you.


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